


The Prince's Guard

by MarcarellaPizza, neptunedemon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Bodyguard, Fairies, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Romance, Royalty, Story Art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-01-20 22:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21288908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcarellaPizza/pseuds/MarcarellaPizza, https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptunedemon/pseuds/neptunedemon
Summary: There’s never been a guard capable of withstanding Prince Yuri’s reportedly pandemonious ways. The coastal Kingdom of Faherl calls out to the far reaches of its territory for a hero, someone made fearless by the harshness of rural lands.The elitist cush of royal life and a raging sea are a far cry from the mess Otabek soon finds himself in, because there are secrets in Faherl, and their resolution may lie in the woods he’s grown up beside. The same that the prince is unnervingly enamored with.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41
Collections: Otayuri Mini-Bang 2019





	1. Take Me to the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! Welcome to this tiny Otayuri fairy tale. This was done for the Otayuri Minibang and I'm sooo happy I could be a part of it this year! The artist for this fic is [Marcella](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/)/[Talle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talle). Her art is adorable, colorful, and amazing, and will be interspersed throughout the entire story. Her style really fits this fic and looks incredible along side it, so please enjoy it as much as I do! <3
> 
> Enjoy!

“Otabek Altin,” the knight decreed. He held a paper that looked as stamped down and thin as Otabek’s nerves, and he winced at the sound of his own name. These kingdom people spoke with booming dignity and everything sounded like either a question or a test. 

He nearly forgot to step forward, too caught in pondering how these inner-kingdom people from the sea were so different than the village he called home, where the only sea was the encapsulating darkness beyond the forest which marked the edge of Faherl’s rule. 

All their visitors had a hardness to their eyes and a callousness to their speech that seemed to be a symptom of something greater than having a stressful post. It gave him all the more reason to have hoped he wouldn’t be the one selected today, and was why now his heart sank after hearing his name. 

That, and because the prince watched him with narrowed eyes. He stood tall but was practically squashed between two guards. If he weren’t so well-adorned in fine clothes, draping green cloths with gold trim and assortments of accessories hanging off him that Otabek couldn’t identify practical purpose for, his eyes would be enough to blend him in with the soldiers. 

Otabek bit back the dip of a frown. The way rumor spread about the unruly prince of Faherl, he often forgot he was not a child. And the prince wasn’t just watching him, no — he was glaring. Otabek wasn’t easily swayed by a person’s demeanor alone, but the prince’s eyes penetrated deep, and he could feel their intensity cut through him and out the back of his head. It gave him the slightest start of a headache. 

They say the prince is reckless, moody, and a danger-seeking threat to himself. He needed someone by his side day and night. Despite the supposed honor it would be, Otabek did not want the responsibility of guarding a spoiled prince. 

The king and queen, after the zenith discharge, resignation, or disappearance of the prince’s guard, had demanded someone unaffiliated as much as possible to the kingdom be chosen next for the position. Someone used to the ruggedness of the earth, so that they might be equipped for the wildness of their son; apparently, this meant coming to Dwindlewelt and putting every soldier through a series of physical and mental tests to decide who would be most fit for the job. 

Dwindlewelt’s soldiers had been informed Faherl would be recruiting one to join their ranks, though the tiny detail of which position had been neglected until after the day of rigorous examinations. 

Otabek would certainly have feigned ill had he known, though he supposed that was the point. 

“Congratulations,” the man continued. The prince scowled harder, if that were possible, and turned his head away from Otabek so quickly his hair whipped into his face. “You’ve been selected for the post of Prince Yuri’s personal guard.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

As promised by the kingdom, a small evening celebration was held for Dwindlewelt. Tomorrow Otabek would set off for Faherl Castle to spend his days alongside Yuri for the foreseeable future, or officially stated as “until constant vigilance is no longer deemed necessary by their Royal Highnesses.” 

After the announcement, Otabek was ushered away from the other contenders, their good-byes a wave of relieved sighs. A stern older man, who gave a quipped introduction as Sir Roskivez, detailed what Otabek could expect the next day to look like. Without a smile or even a note of sympathy for the fact that suddenly Otabek was expected to uproot his life, he explained the few items he was allowed to bring. He’d have living quarters next to the prince’s, he told him. They’d set off in the morning and make it to to Faherl by the following day, as long as they only stopped to eat. 

At some point during his uninspiring speech, Otabek gave himself to envisioning a future where he never escaped this fate. The depths foretold of the prince’s stubbornness were great. But he shook the thought away, let it flutter to the ground with the rest of his strife. He could always just do a really bad job if the price of becoming resented by the palace ended up being worth it. 

Guilt for the thought struck him. He liked a challenge, he really did. But that was a strength he dedicated to causes he felt were just, like the perseverance of life in Dwindlewelt, where they saw only the meagerst of aid from Faherl. Harsh winters siphoned their access to food, and warmth peeled away from their bones until spring. They would spend their entire summer praying for the right winds and rains to let them gather enough to brave the winter yet again. And living between a vast expanse of rugged terrain and a giant woods left them isolated. 

Of course, Faherl _could_ offer more assistance. 

Otabek gathered the impression that those who’d come here to recruit him considered this a service to Otabek as much as Otabek would be a service to them. 

He hated the idea that he wouldn’t be here to help his family during the winter, that word of them being alive and well wouldn’t reach him until the following spring when the last of the snow thawed and someone could safely travel to send a message to the kingdom. 

His chest felt empty and cold by the time Roskivez was done giving him orders. Everything he said was thinly veiled with impatience, like each of his words scooped something out of his soul. 

“And do not forget to join the celebration after you’ve directed Hestov to the items you shall be bringing along. Do you have any questions?”

Otabek did not, but the prince’s glaring eyes flashed through his mind again, and one tumbled out of him.

“Why did Prince Yuri travel here, too? Shouldn’t he have stayed?”

Roskivez scoffed. “He was supposed to aid in the selection process. Ask if anyone stood out.”

“Did he?” Otabek was sure he knew the answer. There was no way that scowl had read anything but contempt.

“Of course not. That little —” He cut himself off, promptly pursing his lips to quash whatever foul words he nearly spoke against his prince. “You’ll learn for yourself soon enough.”

He bid a curt farewell and strode off to yell something at another soldier, and soon his voice was lost to the sounds of celebratory preparations. 

As Otabek turned to head home and begin the painful, dreaded process of packing for a journey in which he had no say in, he noticed the prince standing at the edge of the clearing, still placed tightly between guards. 

Yuri stared at him through the hair fallen in his face. It cropped off at his shoulders, but the edges were uneven, as if someone had taken a knife against the bulk of it and cut it. The light caught earrings through his hair, and they glinted like little nestled embers when Yuri tilted his head for a better angle to frown from. 

It was then Otabek’s breath knocked out of him. Just one breath, because he was still rather undone by the torment of what tomorrow would bring, but a breath nonetheless. Prince Yuri was beautiful in the most dangerous way. Like a natural disaster. Perfect and pristine in itself, as long as you didn’t compare it to the destruction at its feet. 

Yuri wasn’t looking away this time. He held Otabek’s eyes as if to challenge him. 

_I am not the enemy,_ Otabek wanted to plead. He was victim more than Yuri, for Yuri still had his freedoms. 

In the end, Otabek was the one to let his gaze drop, renewed sadness welling in his heart to be leaving his home, and he turned away. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

His mother’s good-byes were tearful. His father hugged in and told him they’d be sure to get a letter through at the very end of autumn and the first breath of spring. His sisters stood tall and teary-eyed as they watched him drag his belongings out to be loaded onto a wagon, with Hestov, a much gentler old man, quietly adjusting the wagon’s load. 

His friends stopped by and promised they’d find an excuse to visit him as soon as they could. Among them was Leo, and he held Otabek in a tight hug before reminding him that if he ever needed any help, any at all, he'd do what he could.

Otabek didn’t know until now that he wasn’t particularly fond of good-byes.

The details of the job that pertained to his personal affiliations were vague. He didn’t have much room to hope. By the sounds of it, everyone in the royal court was eager to drop Yuri the moment someone else was around to deal with him. Otabek didn’t imagine anyone would often be keen on letting him take as many holidays as he'd like. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Shiny golden liquid swirled in Otabek’s cup. It was his town’s best cider and this was the last time he’d have it in long time, and he wasn’t in the mood to drink it. 

Yuri sat alone near the bonfire flaming in the center of the field. Villagers danced and laughed around them, though they gave their prince a wide berth, only casting the occasional nervous glance his way. The prince seemed to feel their eyes on him; he shot the negativity back out with a grimace into the fire. 

He was out-of-place here, dressed so fine. They didn’t need to send him in quite so many heavy garments. Except maybe the intention had been to weigh him down. 

Otabek noticed again, more resigned to the thought this time, that Yuri was handsome. A picturesque prince. How did princes and royalty end up so beautiful?

Firelight twinkled off the jewels sewn into Yuri’s clothes and the jewelry dangling from his ears. His eyes shone the orange flicker back. 

Roskivez was speaking to a villager, a little distracted compared to the attentiveness the others had given the prince all day. 

Yuri’s eyes shot up and met his own; a scowl immediately pressed upon his features, but Otabek looked away. 

He sighed, withdrawing completely into himself, and leaned back on the chair he sat on. He stared into the murky fog of sky, stars blotted out by fire and smoke. 

He was going to miss this. Hopefully sea breeze was as soothing. 

Musicians played away at their instruments, and the chatter and laughter carried on, twining up into the silent darkness of the sky to dissipate into memory with the smoke. 

Otabek’s eyes dropped back to the prince. He blinked. 

Yuri was gone. 

Otabek looked around, expecting to see the back of him disappearing into the crowd around the food set out or being guided away by a soldier. But there was no trace of him. 

Roskivez seemed deep in intense conversation with another group of guards. He clutched a chalice. It must be empty, because nothing spilled out as he waved it around with dramatic hand gestures. 

Maybe moments like _this_ were also why Yuri needed a better guard. 

He got up and scanned the clearing. He hadn’t officially met the prince yet, but something told him that Yuri was the type to not sneak into the packs of dancing, singing people. The festivities were at the edge of town where they could have wide open air for a bonfire. The prince could have darted into the interior of town, but for what? To walk among the poor houses and small marketplace? No, that didn’t seem correct, either. 

The edge of the clearing dipped downhill some thirty meters east of where they stood. From here, against the pallor of night and the orange glow of flames, the space beyond the drop was all darkness. The murky and undefined expanse of forest that extended for weeks of travel spread out. But he couldn’t see the forest’s edge from this far back. 

He walked fast despite the urge to run. He didn’t want to alarm the party or guards if he could help it. Perhaps he was just naive, but at this point he didn’t see any harm in Yuri taking a stroll into the night to get away for awhile. So if he could find the prince and warn him from meandering too close to the forest and guide him back to the party, this could be resolved without fanfare. 

The sounds of the party faded behind him. Woodsmoke carried here, diluted and mixed with scent of dirt and rain from the previous day still lingering in the grasses. A dark sky touched down onto even darker trees, and they touched down to a sea of grass mirroring the night. A figure was moving through them. 

Otabek broke into a run.

Yuri wasn’t just out for a stroll; he was walking with intention and purpose straight toward the woods. 

He could barely see, but he hopped down the steep slope of hill. “Prince!” he yelled, not sure his voice would carry. There came no reply, and for a moment Otabek lost sight of him in the poor light. His eyes scanned furiously as he ran and he called for the prince again. 

“You!” came a voice, and suddenly Yuri was in his line of sight. He’d stopped and turned around to face Otabek with a cruel sneer. “Get away from me, you’re not on-duty yet.”

Otabek stopped with plenty of space between them. He wasn’t sure what was appropriate now. Demand he come back? Or… well, he _wasn’t_ on-duty yet, but that didn’t mean he could just ignore him.

The shadows drew thick, dark lines across Yuri’s expression, deepening his scowl and making him look almost predatory, like a creature prowling in the night. It sent a shiver through Otabek. Or maybe it was just the breeze, cool and menacing down here by the woods. 

“You can’t go into the woods, Prince Yuri, I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

Otabek ran a hand through his hair. This was one of the reasons he wasn't going to fit in with city people and royalty. There were some things about living on the line that divides humanity and whatever is out there that one wasn't privy to when they lived in a castle.

"It's not safe," he tried.

Yuri scoffed. "Okay, sure." It was barely noticeable in the darkness, but Yuri had thrown off the large garment that had been weighing across him all night. His frame was much smaller without it. A pale, loose shirt with long sleeves clung to him. His cloak was balled up carelessly and stuffed under his arm. "I've only lived by the ocean my whole life. I'd like to see something different for once."

"I'm sure, Prince, that you have —" Otabek struggled for the appropriate thing to say, caught between formality in addressing the prince and complete annoyance. "— Royal gardens or something to walk about."

Yuri laughed, pitchy and mean, the sound shooting straight up into the night and nestling somewhere in the trees like it belonged there. "You're funny," Yuri said. He gestured between them. "This is funny. That they think the peasants out in the hills can do a better job than anyone from the palace."

Well, Otabek didn't like that. He stood up straighter, firmer, and let his expression harden. "I guess you'll have to try to get rid of me, too."

Yuri's brows slammed down over his eyes, and he looked Otabek up and down as if taking him in for the first time. Otabek ignored it, ignored everything but the necessity of bringing the prince back. "Come on. You can't go into the woods, and if you try I'll have every soldier present tonight in there searching for you."

He stepped to the side and gestured for Yuri to move past him and start the trek up the hill. 

It took a few seconds, enough that Otabek was bracing himself for yet more arguing, but Yuri eventually moved. A commotion was beginning to rise from the party; it was louder than the normal festivities, so someone must have noticed the prince was gone. Yuri looked back at Otabek and paused, his expression a tad less fighting. Maybe he realized that Otabek had come without alerting the others to give Yuri a chance to return quietly. So much for that. 

Whatever softness that graced his expression briefly twisted into a smirk. The wind picked up a little, and the trees behind them bent and creaked under whispers of leaves. "I think, Otabek, one day you'll take me into the woods."

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The words haunted him through the night and the final goodbyes with his family the following morning, and they haunted him now, in the carriage he shared with Yuri. Otabek suspected that another of the guards was meant to accompany them, maybe Roskivez, but it was just the two of them.

It was perhaps just a statement meant to intimidate him, or maybe he thought Otabek’s affiliation with the woods would lead them back one day. As more of the morning fell away to the bump of the carriage on the road interspersed with the prince’s glares, the more Otabek thought the former idea. 

“There’s nothing to see in the words,” Otabek said. At the break in their silence, Yuri looked up with a start. He stared evenly at Otabek, no thought clear on his face, until his eyes fell away and out the carriage again and he looked merely bored. 

Yuri yawned, slow, then shrugged. “Whatever.”

The daylight streaming in through the carriage windows tried so badly to erase the memory of the haunted, shadowed expression of Yuri the night before. But there was an edge to him that remained; Otabek couldn’t figure out what the trait was, but it clung to him like silt on a river rock. 

He couldn’t imagine how someone raised in the kingdom could turn out so defiant of their very nature. The thought made him sad for the prince — but then Yuri caught him looking and threw a scowl in his direction. 

“What?” Yuri asked.

Otabek could’ve chosen not to answer. Maybe that was against some almighty royal rule, but he hadn’t been briefed on any etiquette of the court yet, so he had his excuses. But he decided on his words. 

“What do you plan to do when we return to the castle?”

Yuri blinked. Then repeated, “What?”

“Is there something planned for you, or do you have a day of, uh, royal stuff or something?”

Yuri stared longer, unanswering, until he kicked his legs out and slouched down into his seat, arms crossed. He stared out the carriage window. “I don’t know. I don’t want to think about being back.” 

Otabek didn’t press the question. He would figure out the prince’s boundaries and comforts soon enough; when he did, both their lives would be a little easier. He hoped. 

He watched Yuri’s eyes fall shut, then measured the day’s time by the sun slanting across him.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Otabek’s first glimpse of the nefarious and secret ways of Prince Yuri came during the night.

Everything could’ve been avoided if they’d stopped to camp overnight. 

Otabek expected that a day and a half trip inherently meant that there would be an overnight stop, including a campout deep in some valley with fire smoke curling into the stars to lure them all to sleep. But these royals were impatient, and the coaches merely changed shifts or worked into the night, following a path weakly lit by torches and lamplights. 

He tried to get some sleep and not think about it. His duty was to the prince and not to concern himself with their whole traveling party. 

Yuri had refused to make further small talk, instead resigning to stare mournfully into the stroke of hill against the horizon, or the valley dip into the river — whatever view was most welcome to their carriage window. 

It was dark and the tempting lure of any woods was far, far behind them now, so he eventually let his eyes fall closed.

Otabek was awakened by a sudden stop that almost sent him rolling onto the floor, followed by a yell from the coach somewhere above. His heart had tumbled out of his chest, because he immediately noticed the prince was gone. 

“Prince!” he yelled out. There was more shouting from the other carriages and wagons, and his call only mixed with their voices. Otabek threw open the door and jumped out into the black. 

There, in red glow of torchlight steadily growing closer, was Yuri. His mouth was agape and his eyes were wide as he stared toward the bottom of the carriage. 

Otabek followed the gaze and understood — sort of. 

One of the wheels was caught in a mess of brush and vines. Long, prickly vines, that seemed to have grown around the spires of the wheel as if it’d been a relic in the dirt for a very, very long time. 

He didn’t understand. The prince turned to look at him, and there was a terrible anger in his eyes — maybe a hurt, too — as if Otabek had accused him of this by merely observing alongside him. 

“Ah! What’s this?” 

Yuri whirled around as a soldier leading a group of others halted before them. 

Otabek cleared his throat. “Seems we ran over a —”

“You were supposed to be watching him,” one of them interrupted, turning on Otabek with a looming stare. He was taller, most of these guys were, triple his age and piled high in royal garments and armor. But Otabek straightened his back and put his feet together. 

“What does that have to do with this?”

A group of eyes collectively blinked at him, then at the soldier that had spoken. “He did this. He does this sort of thing.”

“Are you suggesting Prince Yuri grew a vine out of the ground and wrapped it around a moving carriage wheel?”

No immediate answer came, and now others were gathering. Cooks they’d brought, carriage coaches, and even the frail footman Hestov stared with pained eyes at the prince. It was pathetic to see them all standing there, eager to use Yuri as a scapegoat for a random and minor misfortune. 

A breeze drifted down the valley and seemed to stir everyone from their nettled gazes between the prince and his newly appointed guard. Someone mumbled something, then someone else did, until a few coachmen came forward to begin replacing the wheel.

Otabek stood by Yuri while the vines were cut and the wheel was replaced. They were silent as they’d been all day, but Otabek was biting back a herd of questions. The air around Yuri held a similar weight.

After more shooting glares at both the prince and himself, to which Otabek met with a mere dispassionate gaze, the others returned to their wagons and carriages and horses, and Otabek and Yuri were secured together once again.

The prince dropped back into his slouch, like if he withdrew quickly enough Otabek would agree to pretend the last hour hadn’t occurred. 

“What was that?”

Yuri dragged his eyes to him. “What?”

“What happened. Why were you outside the carriage already? Everyone suspects you now.”

He shrugged, kicking his feet onto the seat and sprawling across it on his back. He stared up at the low carriage ceiling. “They always blame me.”

Otabek shook his head. “Well, it couldn't have been you.” He meant to continue, but Yuri’s eyes cut into him from their corners. 

“You don't blame me?”

“No. Did you see the wheel? The vines were overgrown around it.” 

Yuri smirked. Or perhaps it was a grimace. “You'll be changing your mind soon.”

“Why?”

He shrugged against the seat and said nothing more. 

So yes, Otabek witnessed his first of Prince Yuri’s infamous exploits. But Otabek was unsure how anything that went wrong was the fault of the prince, and yet he couldn’t say it wasn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Please kudo/comment -- and remember, Marcella is linked to the fic so comments about her art will be sent to her, but also go support her social media, which includes sooo many more works by her!
> 
> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talle)


	2. Ring of Fire

Otabek stirred awake when the first rays of sunlight crept inside the carriage. Yuri slept for a long time, his form curled onto the seat making him appear small and fragile. He didn’t look much like a prince, but a normal young man, wayfaring and far away from home. 

They rolled into the kingdom mid-morning, and Yuri woke minutes before passing through the front gates, as if he’d sensed their arrival. 

He stared out the window with a frown and Otabek tried not to glance his way. Each time he was caught looking, Yuri shot him a firm scowl and scooted himself against the window so hard Otabek feared he might topple out. But he forgot Yuri’s tumultuous ways when he saw the kingdom begin to rise out of the horizon. 

It was the castle he saw first, its stone spires reaching between clouds and sky. At its feet was a crowd of many buildings. Otabek’s mind boggled at how many _things_ could exist so close together. Soon rows of smaller buildings were folding around them, and they were in the midst of the city that made up the inner-kingdom and the final stretch of land to Faherl’s castle. His new home. 

It’d been since he was a child that he traveled this far. He hadn’t seen so many people crowded at the sides of the road, filling the spaces between buildings and leaning out windows calling to the streets below. 

And the sounds! The talking and rattling of pans and plates and bumbling of carts on the stone pavement came together to make a steady racket that tickled up Otabek’s spine. 

Beyond the clusters of shops and buildings, Otabek could see the sky. No mountains, no treelines, but the sky. He remembered they were near the ocean. 

Their carriage bounced as the ground underneath changed, and the world dropped away. Otabek couldn’t resist and leaned out over the window. 

He should’ve moved slower. His breath caught and the unfamiliar feeling of vertigo swayed behind his eyes and whirled loops in his stomach. They were on a bridge: a narrow thing made of thick slabs of stone, but with only a wall a meter or so high. Below was the uneven crashing of waves slotted between two steep walls of the cliff crevice they crossed. The water slapped, furious and angry to be trapped, and Otabek fell back into his seat. 

Yuri was watching him, expressionless except for two eyebrows raised high. 

The attempt at eating back his shock was futile on the prince. One of those eyebrows slanted down and a smirk crossed his face. “I guess it’s a lot for a farmboy to get used to, huh? Maybe they were wrong about you.”

Otabek moved his stare back out the window, though he was careful to not look down. The jolt of the carriage under them as they left the bridge helped settle his stomach. 

He pursed his lips, bit back the urge to retort, and stared out the window again, eyes leveled toward the sky.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The man standing before Otabek was tall, regal, and absolutely handsome. He was exactly what he would’ve pictured the a knight of Faherl to be like if he’d bothered imagining one. 

Viktor Nikiforov was luxuriously put together, with what was probably a muscled frame under a patchwork of leather armor and sturdy clothes, with silver hair tied back in a ponytail that fell like shimmery gossamer down his back. 

He bowed with a dash of drama and looked up at Otabek over his lashes. “Welcome, Otabek.”

Otabek half-bowed and still couldn’t pull the concerned frown from his face. “Hi, uh, Viktor. Sir Viktor?”

Viktor rose from the bow and waved a hand with rolling eyes. “Just Viktor, please. I’m so tired of hearing the former.”

“Right, okay. Viktor.”

Viktor grinned, then took a step back and looked at him thoroughly. He nodded. “How do you feel about being Prince Yuri’s guard?”

"Great," he lied.

The grin Viktor gave him was knowing, and Otabek looked at a spot precisely above his head and remained unamused. 

It was day two. Yuri was attending his morning classes, which were just a series of private instructions by some of the Faherl’s academics. 

"I hate them," Yuri had said when Otabek asked. "Just give me a book and a tree to climb." He fell across his bed with the free-falling attitude of someone jumping off a cliff. But the mattress caught him, held him tight in the mess of blankets and pillows adorning it (Otabek had never seen such a large or admittedly comfortable bed), and Yuri remained a man confined within a royal bed, a royal room, a royal palace, a royal everything. 

The way it itched at his being was tangible. That urge to be free pulled at Yuri. When being spoken to, he always seemed to be looking the wrong way. He made people jump when he turned a corner. His hands wrung themselves together when he stood still too long. His mood flickered from furious to distant like a candle in an old attic draft. 

It made Otabek's own hatred for being here rise to the surface of depths he'd tried quite hard to smother it in. He wanted to peel the kingdom's stuffy air off his own skin, pull it out of his lungs and run away. 

But he’d taken a breath, because this didn't have to be hard, and had said, "I have to escort you. It's time to go."

While the prince was off tucked tight into the safe bounds of a makeshift classroom to learn whatever princes learned about, Otabek was to attend his own class. With Viktor Nikiforov, the supposed best knight in all of Faherl, to learn the ropes of knightliness in the palace. 

The interior of the castle was gigantic. So large that Otabek refused to think about it outside of the current space he inhabited. If he was in the foyer, with its sloping staircase like the ribs of a great beast stretching up into the neck of the castle, so be it. If he passed through the doors that audibly groaned across the stone floor to open into a gigantic ballroom, then that was fine, too. Even with its ceilings nauseatingly high, capped with a chandelier that sent a shower of sparkles through the midday light streaming through reaching glass windows, it was just a room. One room. 

Other rooms were easier to bare, smaller and simpler to crush into a minuscule mental size. The library was technically huge, but the shelves and stacks gave the illusion of smallness. The cooks’ quarters were tight and cramped despite them cooking for a castle of people. Lungs too small to really sustain, but they tried anyway. Yuri’s room was large for a bedroom but still only just that. 

When it came to traversing the long corridors, veins of the castle that kept life inside it flowing, he had to count his steps to not go insane. 

Viktor pulled him through these with his voice. He lectured about where this painting came from, that statue, and _ oh, had Otabek been over here? _ and Otabek followed him loyally, not due to any particular gratitude for his tour but because he was the first person to give Otabek the grace of not making him speak beyond an agreeing mutter. 

As they traveled into more frequented places, Viktor began to explain the structure of the royal family’s guard and security in the castle. About what was deemed suspicious here and what wasn’t. 

_ Look everyone in the eyes when you talk. Be straightforward in your answers, even if they’re embarrassing, because no one actually cares but lying is too suspicious. _

The etiquette advice was helpful because Otabek had pretty much been faking it until now.

They made it to the courtyard; it was still half a tour, half a lecture, half casually talking, when Otabek decided to ask a question, because the trees thick with spring blossoms and the high hedges felt like security enough. The castle was largely empty in most of its wide, cavernous spaces, but the threat of ears beyond doors — so many doors — would take Otabek a while to become used to. 

“They scooped up everyone in my village up to test for this.” He gestured to himself. “But I’m not sure I understand why they chose Dwindlewelt at all.”

Viktor stared, quiet and contemplative, and then he hummed a thoughtful sound. He pulled a barely bloomed blossom off a low-hanging branch and held it between his thumb and forefinger. It was pinking but still fading quickly to green halfway down, blending into a ripe base. Still too much bud to have justified picking. Viktor ran a thumb along the edges of the young petals. 

“I hear the king and queen talk, sometimes.” He paused, staring at the blossom he held. 

Otabek waited.

“A lot of people don’t understand Yuri. And I think they were less worried about the type of soldier they hired, but the type of person.”

Otabek felt his face fall further into confusion. He wanted to understand, but that was too much wishing, he supposed, as Viktor’s thumb slipped (purposefully?) into the blossom and crushed it. His hands fell open and it dropped to the grass. It hit with a little thunk that Otabek felt in his stomach like a soft kick. 

“How do you know much about Prince Yuri?” he asked.

Viktor’s smile was private and Otabek felt the air around them soften, about to be bestowed with a secret. 

“He reminds me of myself,” he said. “Ready for something else, feeling like something else is supposed to happen.” There’s a moment where it’s just the rustle of leaves above them and the faraway sounds of people. Then he added with remittance and a shrug, “But I’m probably just bored, and he’s probably just young.”

If there was something Otabek was supposed to say to an answer like that, it didn’t come to him, and Viktor didn’t seem to expect much. When the dust settled, he took him around the courtyard in full, explained a few more meticulous details the layout of the grounds, and brought them back inside. 

In one of the many corridors — Otabek tried to remember if they’d gone up the flight of stairs or down — they meet Yuri leaving his lessons. He frowned to see Otabek already prepared to retrieve him, but then his eyes cut to Viktor and he scowled. 

“Prince!” Viktor chortled with a wave. 

“No,” Yuri shut him down without preamble. His eyes snapped to Otabek. “Let’s go.”

“I, uh —” 

He looked between Viktor and Yuri, then remembered where his loyalties had to lay. He cleared his throat. “To your room?”

“Sure.” Yuri was halfway through the stretch of the corridor while Otabek was still thanking Viktor for his help and advice. 

Viktor waved him away after ensuring Otabek knew he could come to find him anytime he needed, and to be sure to drag the prince along if he did so. 

Otabek ran to catch up with Yuri, mind tripping over the meager but heavy words Viktor had given him.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Otabek was allowed free time, mostly because Yuri’s life consisted of none. As a prince, he was constantly involved in _ things, _ and most of this job consisted of dragging Yuri to his tutors, royal meetings, small banquets, and trailing him pretty much everywhere as he bemoaned his suffering and passed hints to Otabek that he _ could _ just disappear and Otabek _ could _ just pretend he sucked at his job.

In his finer horror about what this new duty might entail, he’d imagined never being allowed his own personal thoughts again. That he might be some other man’s shadow for the foreseeable future.

But depending on what Yuir’s day entailed, Otabek wasn’t allowed to sit in on each of Yuri’s dates, and so he found himself wandering the long shelves of the library or counting his steps in the corridors during the first week.

He met with the sea, too.

Only once, when he was young, had his parents taken him from Dwindlewelt into the kingdom. He’d seen the sea then and decided he did not like it. Blue rippling and sparkling in any light available, pulled taught as far as the eye could see — it was huge, heavy, and Otabek felt it in his throat as a choking mass, consuming and terrifying.

He’d stared around at everyone around him, gazing at the sea like they were lucky to be within its sight, and he’d thought they were all stupid for thinking that suffocating omnipresence was calm.

That hadn’t changed, though there were no parents here for him to watch in child-like terror as their minds were momentarily consumed by that false allure.

The rush of the waves felt like a cold snake settling in his stomach.

Trailing Yuri on a walk down the beach one day deemed able to distract him from that serpentine crawl. Otabek had received order to force the prince into some 'fresh ocean air,' as this particular messenger had put it. A request straight from the king. Otabek chose to persuade rather than force, and eventually convinced Yuri that if they made sure they meandered past the west end of the tower, where the most windows faced over the sea, then someone ought to see them about and be satisfied, and then they could return quickly. 

Otabek made note of how easy it was to convince him of something if it seemed like they were still secretly breaking rules. 

Yuri kicked his shoes off into the sand, demanding, "Leave them," when Otabek quietly collected them. He still did, and Yuri didn't protest more, but walked down to the water's edge. He shivered with the breeze rolling in like a brushstroke of white, crisp air off the tide. 

"Never really cared for the sea." His voice was adrift in the wind.

The water pressed up the shore, a thin sheet of foaming opalescence against the grit of the beach. Heart jumping into an automatic sense of a chase, Otabek backed away from it, but Yuri stayed, and the water wrapped around his ankles. 

Otabek blinked, confused. 

It would be the first of many moments like this. 

Something dark seemed to drain out of the water at his feet, like a hundred loose tendrils being severed at an invisible core and recoiling away. He stared harder, trying to catch the individual outline of anything his mind tried telling him he perceived, but maybe nothing was actually there. A pressure lifted from the air, silencing a ringing in his ears he hadn't noticed. 

Yuri turned to look at him. "Did you hear me? I said I never really cared about the ocean. I bet you like it, don't you? Since you grew up without it. Things always seem to work out like that — in opposites."

It took Otabek a few seconds to answer, and when he did, all he managed was, "No, I don't like it either."

Except suddenly, without the press of mindless dread on his chest, he didn't think he minded it all that much. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Otabek wasn't one for paranoia. But the longer he was around Yuri, the more it crawled up his spine. 

After the sea incident, they'd started their return to the castle. Yuri had, against Otabek's best advice, insisted on dawdling a little longer to climb onto a pier. As he stood on it, overlooking the sea with a proud smirk on his face, Otabek's heart had only time to thump hard just once at the way the wind curled through his hair. Then the dock buckled. 

Yuri was fine because it happened farther down the dock, but some lone fisherman went headfirst into the sea with a shout. Another few dove in after. The tide was calm enough that they would be fine, but Otabek hastened the prince back to the castle.

A group of other guards caught them at the gate; they'd seen the brief chaos. They huffed, faces already red.

"You were supposed to be watching him!" 

"This is what you're supposed to be able to prevent!"

Yuri pushed past them with Otabek close behind, both of them not bothering to respond; at some level of royal decorum that was probably considered quite rude. He couldn't care. He'd seen the dock get sucked partway into the sea without Yuri’s intervention, and more terrifying than that was the way the guards so easily assumed the prince was connected. 

And so the paranoia thickened, because a mere stroll through the gardens could cause everyone in the vicinity to trip at once over their own feet. A rest too long in the sun streaming through a window might shatter it. 

It did not take Otabek long to realize Yuri was not the miscreant rumor claimed. 

It took only a bit more time for him to realize that Yuri’s past guards were less likely to have been chased away by fear of him, but rather the ridicule and scorn by every single member of the royal staff, the king and queen included. 

"We've heard there have been a few... instances," the king said to Otabek on their first meeting. They'd arranged for a private dinner on his fifth night so that they may meet him in person, get to know him, and express their _ _deepest_ _hopes he'd stick around. "But we stand by our decision to have pulled you from Dwindlewelt."

The queen nodded weakly, arms closed around her chest. Neither of them looked like Yuri. At all, actually. Where Yuri was lean and angular, they were stout and round, and Yuri was deeply pale compared to their olive complexions. 

"Please," the queen murmured to the table. "Let us know if you need anything. For... for my Yuri." She didn't even say his name quite right. 

Otabek frowned and wondered at which point this hesitant pleading would turn to impatience. When the passive-aggressive scorn of the staff became full resentment and anger. 

Something burned to life inside of him. The blindness of everyone, even the supposed rulers of Faherl, to see that Yuri was merely anything but the prince, burned around his heart like spokes poking a bear. He may not understand what was happening, but that didn’t make him a fool. This obtuse ignorance was what was foolish. It was unjust. Yuri, with all his sharp edges and poorly withheld anger, had taken all this nonsense in stride. 

So Otabek would protect him from whatever accusation, whatever trial, whatever petty circumstance may befall him. Whatever this farce of elitist society would shove their way, he’d be there. 

The king’s eyes turned icy in their sternness. “He’s meant to take the throne one day, mind you. Don’t forget.”

Any person who'd dedicated their life to the health and prosperity of the royal kingdom would surely collapse under a pressure like that. 

Luckily for them, Otabek didn't give a damn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talle)


	3. Who Are You, Really?

And another thing. 

When something wasn’t breaking down or falling apart, everyone in the castle ignored the prince beyond basic decency. 

Yuri was used to it. He moved between their words and bodies like a ghost, with Otabek struggling to keep up as everyone asked _him_ about the prince rather than addressing him themselves. He wasn’t sure if they did it to be spiteful or if they were just quite oblivious.

It was no wonder Yuri became disillusioned in their eyes. Even if he couldn’t avoid them both being scolded for what they could not control — things falling, people tripping, foundations collapsing, all which Yuri took in stride — Otabek felt he still did well in his task.

He caught Yuri by the belt when he leaned too far out a window, suggested how he might focus on not dozing during speeches, and coerced him into attending banquets. Otabek wasn’t as direly needed as the king and queen suggested, and he began to think he’d be out of here in no time, maybe even by the time the prince turned 18.

“Prince Yuri,” he started one afternoon when they were on one of their garden strolls. Specifically not past the ocean. They could hear the waves crash from here. 

“Don’t call me that. You know I'm no prince."

It was perhaps part of his duty to argue this, to refute this strange and almost treasonous notion and insist the prince believe he is, of course, the prince. Some heavy, strange sense of truth in his chest compelled him otherwise. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Yuri had always been uncomfortable with the title. And a person shouldn’t have to wear titles they do not like. 

It was a shame Yuri’s life couldn’t be defined by anything but such titles. With only the two of them, though, they could pretend matters were different. He said, "Okay. Just Yuri, then?"

"Yeah, just Yuri."

"Then, Yuri," he said, testing the single name adrift like saying it all anew. He thought it'd sound lonely, but it sounded much less so, and Yuri seemed to agree with this, because he turned to look back at Otabek with half a pleased smile.

_I'm no prince._

The idea flooded him like a terrible doorway had been opened in the attic of his brain, and all the secrets inside had stormed out, piling into a world he thought he understood. It made his heart sit heavy in his chest.

Otabeked scrubbed the thoughts off as quickly as they rushed over him.

Yuri stepped forward, feet a little lighter than before, and Otabek blinked as a vine from a nearby plant trembled. For a moment he was sure it reached for him, but then it was still, grown only slightly into the path, and Yuri was still walking.

"Yuri," he repeated, eyeing the vine as if it might yet raise out of the ground and attack. He cleared his throat, wishing all the baggons of the last minute away. "Why don't we go to town?"

"I hate town."

"Yes, well. I'll make sure no one blames you for stupid stuff. Okay?"

Yuri balked, then grinned a smile that grasped at Otabek’s heart, stunned with the ease at which he could clear the clouds of Yuri’s mind away. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

"Not that way." Yuri turned an abrupt left, heading down an alley. Otabek dodged out of the street to follow him. The stark contrast of Yuri's elegant attire keeping him from blending with the shadows; his clothes twinkled in greens and golds like starlight under the shade of squat buildings lining the square.

"Why this way?" 

"Whatever they do at the smithy gives me a headache."

"What they... do?" Otabek managed to stride at his side again. "Make weapons?"

"I guess so." Their steps clapped against the stone, seeming loud in the corridor of alleyway silence. Then they emerged into the light and sound again. An expanse of brick street laid out before them into the market square, where there'd be trade and business. 

Otabek grappled with Yuri’s claim as he trailed him into the square. The blacksmith uses fire, heat. And of course iron, among other metals. 

The corners of his lips tugged into a compulsory frown; the notion that Yuri may not like iron was familiar to him, like something he’d known once or should know more about. 

Then Yuri stopped walking and, looking around with wide and curious eyes, asked, "Say, do they sell animals there?"

"Um. Goats?" Otabek supplied dumbly, thinking of Dwindlewelt's market.

"Well, I was hoping for a cat."

They tried, but they did not find a cat. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Yuri kicked the water. The gray lapped under the frail legs of the dock like a hundred hungry maws opening and closing at the wood. The sun was dipping low. The fishermen had gone in for the day, leaving them in a private oasis of aging day and the dying sounds of the castle.

"Father wants me to attend something stupid tonight."

"And you will. What is it?"

Yuri stretched his arms to the sky, yawning, then he fell back onto the dock. He gazed up. “Dinner with the King of Vysnia. They’re going to talk trade. It just doesn’t seem like stuff I should know.”

Otabek dug his nails into the salt-choked wood of the pier. He could see the appeal of a place like this, now that Yuri’s feet in the water chased away the worst of the sea. “Why shouldn’t you know?” he asked. 

“I can’t see me ever handling that stuff.”

Protests rose and died in Otabek’s mouth before he could voice them. He decided to try a different angle this time; perhaps helping Yuri visual himself as king, rather than reminding him he would be, would convince him. Even if it felt wrong to persuade someone of some they hated. 

He didn’t have time to try. Otabek startled at the sound of Yuri yelling, and Yuri quickened to his feet. A tendril of water rose from a ripple and followed Yuri up the dock. Otabek barely had time to grab the hilt of his knife, as if that would make fine work against a wisp of water. 

The watery arm trembled as Yuri backed farther from it, then it fell back into the sea.

“Damn it!” Yuri cursed, shaking water from his feet. “Little sea pests!”

Otabek only stared.

“Right, you’re from inland. I don't know what those are, but they only ever bother me.” He sneered at the water, then sat back down and plunged his feet in, as if there was reason to be confident it wouldn't happen again. 

Maybe Otabek was too familiar with the magic of the valleys and woods. The wisps of light that led beyond the bends of hills, the glittering reflection of something like eyes in the black of night. 

Children of Dwindlewelt were taught that when it looked like the stars were in the trees, it was time to come inside. If you stayed out, the rustle of the wind would become whispers that would creep with the shadows to pour false promises into human ears. 

According to the stories, when you laid eyes upon a fairy at the edge of the woods, it was already too late, because you’d seen them in the flesh, breaking an unspoken sacred pact — and even if you turned around and went indoors and tried to forget, one day they’d come for you, take you, and you’d be theirs forever. 

He couldn’t manage to sit back beside Yuri, so he clung to the mast of the dock and watched the cold depths, as if he could even see a thing beyond the surface. He didn’t know what the stories were of sea people, or the type of magic the water could use to lure you in. Some high song in the whistle of the breeze, maybe, that would pull you in like a fish on a line, until the water wrapped around your throat and gripped your limbs with icy fingers. 

Otabek shivered. 

A bell tolled four thunderous times, and Yuri kicked a splash out of the water. “Dinner is at six.”

“It’ll be fine,” Otabek promised. He extended a hand that Yuri took. His was cold, as if he’d just been in those unfeeling waters. He bit back the chill that crept up his arm and helped pull the prince to his feet. “You just have to look like you understand what’s going on. They won’t want anything important from you.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

They did. 

Yuri was disgruntled over being required to spend a whole hour being dressed and primped for the evening. Georgi Popovich, the head royal tailor, had received special orders from the king and queen to make sure the prince was dressed his finest for this evening, because there would be a surprise for him. This had been half-muttered to Otabek by Popovich when he’d shoved him from Yuri’s room and declared he needed_ at least an hour! An hour to make this beastly prince into a beauty!_

Then he’d slammed the door. Otabek stood before it, unsure what to do, because he was supposed to be on duty until nine. He supposed he could just… stand here. 

A familiar trill of voice carried from around the turn of the hall, and then a head of pale hair turned the corner. Viktor was speaking with a maid, chortling a list of chores and waving him away at once. He started to step down another corridor.

“Viktor!” Otabek called.

Viktor turned with the pallor of worry in his eyes, but they cleared a little upon seeing Otabek. “Otabek! How are you?”

“Waiting for Yuri to get ready for tonight’s dinner.”

His lips pursed as he nodded. “Ah, of course.” 

Otabek waited for more, for Viktor tended to be talkative and might share with him the secret behind tonight’s dinner. 

Silence stayed stuck to him; the hint of worry folded back in around his eyes. Maybe Otabek interrupted him in an important task. 

Fingers of light from the setting sun streamed in through a nearby window and laid across Viktor. Time clung a little tighter around him. There was something distinctly familiar about the sight — sun enveloping Viktor as he wavered between thoughts.

He could’ve sworn the air cooled. Otabek glanced to the window to see if it was open and letting the sea breeze in, but it was sealed. 

He forced himself to focus, to emerge from the strange, chilled depth of the castle hall to ask, “What’s happening tonight?”

Viktor stared over Otabek’s shoulder down the long throat of empty hall, nothing but stone and window and door, before he said, “The king is surprising Yuri. The King of Vysnia is bringing their prince, and they will be invited to attend Yuri’s birthday ball as honored guests.”

Otabek narrowed his eyes, feeling a little dumb that maybe be was missing something.

“They’re both eligible heirs to a throne.”

“Oh.” Heat rushed to his face; if Viktor noticed, he politely didn’t make it clear, though Otabek was sure he was cast in the shadow of the hall. He was thankful for it. The notion of the prince _marrying _at any time in the near future never crossed his mind. In fact, he realized, he always imagined Yuri quietly being forced to take the throne when his parents were too old and frail to lift their own arms. That until then, they’d keep him securely locked within the bounds of the castle, filling his days with desperate attempts to mold him into something he wasn’t. 

_I’m no prince._

He let his concerns rattle around in his head unattested and only said to Viktor, “Yuri does not like surprises.”

“I know. I’m glad you’ll be there. I will be, too, but beside their majesties, of course.”

Otabek thanked him for the warning and Viktor hurried away, the strange and disorienting mist rolling out like fog as he left.

Otabek minded himself for the next half-hour with thoughts slowly pulling together: the strangeness of the people here, the way there was a secret stuck behind Viktor’s eyes, and Yuri, the _prince,_ lacking the belief he was one. With his reaching earth and prodding sea, his grace among the way the world tumbled around him, the way people flung their anger his way. 

Yuri’s bedroom door flung open. Popovich jut his head out. “Come! Come see before you take him to dinner, Otabek, and tell me if I’ve done well by their majesties.”

Royal attire tended to be tight and rigid. It was built to your body, meant to clasp to you desperately. Otabek learned this when a bustle of tailors had shown up in his room the first day to take his measurements, then returned not a day later with armloads of clothes for him to try. 

Yuri wore a jacket and pants of deep green. The fabric was interspersed with folds of silk fluttering down him like canopy leaves, with vines of gold threading in tendricle weaves across his chest. Pale chiffon spilled out from under the jacket like a breath of clear night. All buttons and clasps were made of gold, too, and the spotting of candles throughout the room that he stood among glittered off the gold spun through his clothes.

His scowl matched the hot molten glint and he crossed his arms when Otabek stared too long without speaking. 

“I hate this,” Yuri muttered, but Popovich hissed and pulled his arms back to his sides. Keeping him held there, he bent back and inspected the attire with a firm once-over, then glanced between the clothes and Otabek. 

The prince looked like fairies staring out of the dark woods, deep moonlight in their eyes. 

Something fell into place. 

“Ah, good,” Popovich said. “It’s about time.”

“For what?” Yuri yanked his arms back to his chest and looked at the floor. His face flushed and drew down into a fiercely embarrassed scowl. 

“That one of my outfits for you would be enough to render a man speechless.”

Yuri grumbled something and kicked his foot into the rug, scooping it up in ruffles. Popovich said something else teasing, maybe even to Otabek, but he didn’t hear. 

He was staring at the glittering winks moving across Yuri and the way the braid of his hair pulled the locks from his eyes. His stare cut through air with each glance, narrowed at Otabek, and around the room, and at his tailor. A breeze beyond an open window caught an updraft and gust into the room. Candles threw long, dancing shadows across the walls.

“We should get the prince downstairs,” Otabek said, and “prince” _really _didn’t sound correct now. Even though it should: he was all beauty and majesty. 

Popovich sent Yuri off, and Yuri spent most of their walk down the spiraling stone stairs complaining of how uptight Popovich was this evening, and what could be so important for him to dress so, and had he mentioned he wouldn’t tell if Otabek let him sneak off?

His mind pulled into focus again. 

“Just remember to breathe.” 

“Except they make me talk and answer so many questions that I can’t catch my breath.”

“You’ll make it through.”

Did he know?

He glanced at him from the side, saw only scowl and irritation, nothing more, nothing like a darkly hidden secret or a well-concealed identity.

“And what’s with that crap back in my room? Don’t mock me like that! It makes Georgi tease me more, too. I hate it.”

That gave him pause, other thoughts grinding to a halt. “Mocking you?” He grinned. “Is that what you thought?

“What? Yes!” He looked to the side. They were leaving the stairwell and entering the long foyer that led to the dining hall. A red rug was laid out the whole way, matching the deep hues of paintings of old kings and queens and their offspring, all adorning drapes of gold and red. 

“I don’t look like a prince; these clothes are terrible on me.”

Otabek hummed, and he ignored _that_ line again, and the eerie way their steps made no sound across the carpet, the way the suspicious eyes of all the royal family watched them — how everything was like they were walking down a long tongue into some beast’s throat, down into the unknown — and he said, “You don’t have to be a prince to be beautiful, Yuri.”

Yuri’s face was still red when the doors to the dining hall swung open. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The dining table was weighed down in steaming food. Roasted meats, hot stews, fruit desserts — all a cacophony of scent. 

People filled the table from end to end. The king and queen sat in the center, with Yuri across from them. Beside the king was the King Leroy, and beside them, Prince Jean-Jacques. Upon introduction, Yuri’s eyes had narrowed and cut through the air until they were slicing a line down his father, who only gave a warning stare before carrying out the opening remarks. 

Otabek stood back with the other guards and resting servants. Viktor was there, cheery and smiling, hands behind his back like he had nothing to hide, even though his eyes refused to drift too long without snapping back into focus. 

He grimaced with Otabek as Prince Jean-Jacques was introduced. He also tensed as the king announced the Leroys of Vysnia were invited to be honored guests at Prince Yuri’s birthday ball. 

“Ah, yes, the young man will be upon his 18th year, if I am not mistaken?” King Leroy asked. He snuck a brief smile at his son. 

“Indeed! Such a special occasion!”

Yuri stared at his dinner plate, eyes burning harder into the porcelain with each cheerful remark shared at his expense. He held onto his fork with white-knuckles. He could have turned to dust and blown away into everyone’s food and they likely wouldn’t have noticed. Otabek hated to watch. 

When not stressed for Yuri, he was — well, still stressed for him. Because something was amiss in Faherl. 

Glasses clinked, people laughed. Servants hastened upon the table to bring dessert. Prince Jean-Jacques whispered something to Yuri, mouth moving silently, and Otabek wished he could hear. 

No one knew. This wasn’t a kingdom that meddled in enchantments. The woods were far, and yet Yuri was here. 

Except he didn’t seem to know. 

Otabek wanted to refute it all, for it sounded downright treasonous to consider. But he couldn’t deny what he’d witnessed: the creep of nature around Yuri, the way his eyes watched the world in reverse, the reaction to iron — his obsession with the woods. 

Suddenly another tale came to him. When his mother was pregnant with his firstborn sister, his grandmother told the story of babies swapped with fairy children. Parents of stolen children never noticed until their child grew up waxen and strange, full of deceit and impish behavior. 

Child-like wonder consuming him, he never asked why fairies would do such a thing. He’d marveled at the idea of fairies among them, trying to live as adult humans, and he’d held up his own hands in amazement and wondered if they knew, deep down, they were different. 

When Ashya was born, he’d memorized her features before that first night of sleep, then lay there awake as long as he could, listening for intruders. Come morning, he peered over Ashya’s cradle and counted her toes. 

“To the longevity of our kingdoms!” the king toasted. Cheers were thrown forth; Yuri twisted in his seat to turn to Otabek and communicate his annoyance with a quick, pained roll of his eyes and a sneer in Prince Jean-Jaques’s direction. 

Otabek forced a sympathetic grin, but only one thought was pounding through his head now, over and over, the steady beat of sloshing mugs and clinking forks vibrating down his spine and rattling his core. It was so loud that he worried he couldn’t contain the thoughts himself. That this secret was too much for one to bare alone. 

But the world outside him remained unaffected by his revelation, with the dinner party at its peak and other guards standing restlessly around him. 

Only Viktor glanced his way. When Otabek caught his eye, Viktor nodded to Yuri and said, “Interesting choice of attire from Georgi. Quite fitting, wouldn’t you say?”

Otabek nodded and clutched the thought to himself, wondering how on earth he was meant to protect Yuri now. 

Because Yuri is a changeling. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talle)


	4. And On the 18th Year

He couldn’t tell Yuri. Life as a prince was hard enough without not actually being one. The knowledge would be a burden. 

Otabek could be wrong. He doubted it, but if he was and threw out such an accusation, Yuri would not forgive him. He would be another guard that was broken by the pressures of assisting Faherl's prince. 

He tried to let it go, all the wicked thoughts about Yuri being different. It felt like lying. It was like acting as obtuse and impetuous as the reset of the royal court. But if Otabek's suspicions were true, his feigned ignorance might be the only thing that could protect Yuri. 

He escorted Yuri to his lessons, encouraged him to attend events, humored his parents. He bit back making assertions — or agreeing with Yuri’s — about the vanity of it all. Yuri argued with him more than usual because of this and it seemed like the world trembled with those newborn frustrations. 

They’d make their way through corridors and a seething annoyance might cause Yuri to clench his fists and teeth. A great crack from outside would cut through their banter, or perhaps a large splash or some foreman's yelp. 

Yuri often rolled his eyes, grumbled that now he would be late to wherever they were headed; alone, with the trepidation of someone who knew Yuri's secrets, Otabek would attend the nearest window and witness a tree snapped clean down the center, wood steaming like it was cut through with lightning, or the tail-end of a sudden surge in the waves, or a collapsed roof in the stable.

When walking through the gardens, a whispering rustle sometimes came from every tree and kind of plant they passed. Otabek could barely focus on conversation with the creeping sense of being watched. 

Yuri moved through the world like he always did: without care, notice, and Otabek, in his scramble to ignore it too, still wondered if _he_ knew. If somewhere behind those hard eyes pressed down by dipping brows, the knowledge sat, dusty like old tomes full of words he preferred to ignore. 

Yuri kicked the stones in their path and pebbles sprayed like skittering bugs. They'd reached an edge of the garden, one that led to a path spilling down to the beach and the sea. They stopped at the end of the shadows of trees, where it was cool enough to chill Otabek's skin. He resisted wrapping his arms around himself.

The evening was milking the last of the light out of the twilight, pinks blushing over the ocean horizon. Flecks of light glittered off the surface like a spray of tiny gems. 

Otabek felt Yuri's expectant eyes on him like another reach of light across the sea. They had talked less and less, lately. The past week had been drowned in Otabek treating Yuri like the royalty the prince so despised; it was no secret Yuri pushed such things away. 

Except Yuri broke the delicate silence, voice almost masked by a crashing wave. “My birthday ball is soon.”

“Indeed, it is.” The leaves twitched above them. 

“I don’t want to go.”

His eyes fell to the shadow-splattered ground. He should take Yuri inside soon. He answered, “Well, you need to go.”

Trees fall in the forest. They tumble and break, soundless because no one is around; one day you take a walk and find it grown back into the earth. Otabek wondered how often Yuri has tried to make a sound, idling alone in the strange, invisible forest of his world. 

“What’s wrong?” Yuri said, a new edge to his voice, going from a cool rush of waves to the jagged things they crashed on. 

Otabek swallowed hard, downing his lies so they might be easier to manifest. “Nothing.” 

“What, did Viktor convince you to treat me like a fool?”

“Of course not.”

Silence save for the trees. Something snapped, then cracked — a sharp sound calling up through the falling night. Otabek’s eyes flit to the shadows back within the garden, where its deeper corners suddenly felt watchful. Yuri was scowling about the ball or the sound or whatever; his face cast itself with the dark. “Fine.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The day of the ball, which was the day before his birthday, Otabek knocked on Yuri's door to take him down to breakfast. He was met with a long few minutes of waiting, knocking, and further prodding for Yuri to open the door lest he get Popovich to bust in there, or worse, one of the nursery maids. When Yuri opened his door, his attempt at masking himself in some sort of illness only came through as ill-tempermant. 

"You're still attending, and it'll be good for you," Otabek said. 

Yuri scowled and slammed the door. Ten minutes later, he was dressed and ready for breakfast, eyes trained to avert from Otabek as much as possible. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Popovich borrowed from the theme of the banquet’s outfit when designing Yuri’s attire for the ball. 

The kingdom had been in rapturously good spirits. Dwindlewelt never saw any invitations to balls, and so Otabek had never been to one nor known a person to attend. But everyone outside the palace was keen to know how preparations were going, what other royalty was invited, and whether the prince would attend his own party this year or not (apparently he had a history of bailing). Most often, he wasn’t liable to answer these questions, though he did confirm the prince would be in full attendance this year. They shot Yuri — who was usually stomping ahead of Otabek — wary glances at that, while Yuri threw back a grimace. 

When Yuri stepped out of his room, dressed for a ball and effectively looking angry, the air punched from his lungs once again. Yuri was wild, trapped, ensnared, just like before — but more so, with heavier gold draping across his clothes, and more sequins catching the light like a hundred crystals had been shattered and sewn into his clothes.

Popovich was dramatic and superfluous, but he could thread together a good outfit. 

Then Otabek was leading the frowning prince downstairs, where the sounds of music heaved up through the stairwell to find them. Yuuri’s scowl deepened as the descended the castle, and the glances he shot Otabek grew darker by the minute. 

The air was tense as a tight rope between them, but moments before Yuri would enter the ballroom, music the thrum of a giant’s pulse behind the door, Otabek dared cross that rope. 

“You’ll do fine,” he said. 

Yuri’s head turned sharply, quick, like he’d been hit and was angry about it. “Watch me.”

Otabek blinked. Then the doors opened; music and light flooded out in slapping contrast to the stony dark of the stairwells. The crowds stifled their sound until just the music played behind the noise of feet shuffling aside. They parted to greet their prince. 

Banners adorned Faherl’s blue and purple; they hung around a grand chandelier, sending a twinkling spray of lights across the ballroom, which was lit in gold with the threat of nightlight hiding at the edges of the room.

Regal orchestral music twirled through the ballroom, unhindered by the prince’s arrival. It met Yuri through the parted crowds and he stepped into it, through the notes and pitches, and Otabek withheld a gasp. He must've rehearsed this during one of his many hours locked behind palace doors. 

The crowd bowed like a retreating wave. Yuri stepped through space like he belonged in it for once — not like he was twisting and trampling the world around him, breaking it into something sharp and dangerous. Instead, he claimed the false ground under his feet, and he walked a confident line through the room to the thrones of the King and Queen. 

When he really, really wanted to, he fell easily into the path of molten gold and beauty — this princely man who was no prince. 

Otabek forced himself to watch the crowd, which was more important than watching Yuri despite his curiosity. And what he wanted. He wanted to watch Yuri, bask in the peace of watching him exude a grace not often bestowed; Otabek could practically feel how hard Yuri was focusing to hone such an ambiance. 

His gaze still flitted around the attendees, but there were other guards much less involved in Yuri's life, and so, for now, he let himself be like one of the crowd and watched Yuri step before his parents seated at the head of the room in long, draping chairs. He greeted them with words Otabek could not hear. The music picked back up and people dispersed and broke apart toward their partners like a wave coming back to shore. 

Yuri took dances offered by distant nobility and his relatives; he moved with the grace of a blown leaf, twirling and dancing with every shift of a draft only he could feel. The chandelier sparkled in his forest of clothes. Then Otabek watched as he accepted Prince Jean-Jaques’s bowed hand. 

As the next song started and they took their place on the floor, Yuri’s eyes spent a few spare seconds scanning the crowds. He saw Otabek, threw a wicked grin of thorns his way, and immersed himself completely into the embrace of Prince Jean-Jaques’s arms. 

They didn’t look bad dancing under the glittering light. The entire crowd moved together to the song, some sort of waltz, everyone drifting to and fro with every sing of the violins and sweep of trumpets. 

Otabek was a statue among the sea of them, eyes on Yuri to ensure he didn’t suddenly become wild or whatever everyone feared, and thus he was made to watch him dazzle spectators and charm his dance partner. As his guard, he got to attend Yuri’s side every waking moment of the day, falling in line behind him as much as the prince’s own shadow, but he would never be permitted to be there for those important parts. Like eating fine dinners and dancing fine dances. 

Despite himself, Otabek blushed at the silly thoughts. He’d never been interested in such trivialities before. Now it seemed strangely significant to miss out on those things -- to be a bystander to the life of someone you cared about. 

The song drew to a close as a crescendo of flutes met their peak; Yuri and Prince Jean-Jaques twirled once more, hands interlocked over their heads, and then stopped once they faced each other again. They bowed. Otabek’s heart twinged in his chest.

As other dance partners parted to join with another, Prince Jean-Jaques said something to Yuri, who he’d already nearly lost the attention of. Yuri turned back and stared at something that he held out in his hands.

It was small, dark, and luminous – a gift, it seemed. 

Yuri’s hand reached for it, and then the music picked up and dancers swept in Otabek’s line of sight. For several moments, there was only more music and more dancing. 

A small commotion erupted from the crowd, confusion and panic swelling with the new notes. Otabek’s eyes searched for Yuri, his heart pounding a warning beat in his chest, and then he saw him, sitting on the floor, palms pressing into both sides of his head. His eyes were squeezed shut.

Otabek pushed away from the wall and took off toward him, barely noticing people around him parting in alarm. The music kept carrying in a peppy, swooping song.

Prince Jean-Jaques stepped forward, a pained confusion over his expression, but he seemed intent upon helping Yuri with an outstretched hand. The little gift was still clutched in his other. When he came too near, Yuri growled out, “Get away from me!” 

The gift was some sort of trinket, engraved with intricate designs, and Otabek knew right away it was made of iron.

“Otabek!” The relief in Yuri’s tone would have melted the heart of anyone who heard their name in that voice.

He pulled Yuri up, all his strength dedicated to supporting his weight as Yuri still held his head. Otabek sent a look of warning to Prince Jean-Jaques as he once again started forward with helpful-but-vain intentions. He felt a small pang of guilt for the concern on his face, but Yuri was his priority. 

“Let’s take a break,” Otabek suggested, loud enough that Prince Jean-Jaques – and anyone else – could hear and know to not follow them. 

He draped Yuri’s arm around his shoulder, and Yuri grumbled, “I can still walk,” but then people were spouting questions and staring with interest, and his argument dropped to a low, guilty mutter of thanks. 

There were terrace doors at the side of the room, left open a crack to let the night air seep in; Otabek pulled him along toward it, willing away the stares and thankful the music still had yet to cease, and he took Yuri out into the night.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The terrace had stairs that led down to the gardens, and they found a quiet place on a bench just beyond the light’s reach from the castle windows. The way Yuri kicked his boot in the dirt, face angled away from Otabek, was telltale of how much he didn’t want to be questioned. 

Otabek tried to respect it, but what _ he_ knew sat on his chest like a stone. Yuri didn’t have to be alone in this torment, in the tempest of mysteries likely storming his brain.

He settled on quietly observing Yuri pout. Among the garden’s nature, beyond the stretch of light, the beautiful clothes on Yuri no longer seemed as elegant. They seemed heavy, like when he first saw the prince in Dwindlewelt all those weeks ago. Chains shackling him to the palace, to come of age tonight in the light of a lie he lived with so much strife. 

To truly be the prince’s guard, to actually be of service to Yuri, it would be right for him to tell him the truth. That was the only way. 

“Yuri —” 

A bell tolled out the stroke of midnight. 

Yuri’s hands shot to his head and he grunted. Otabek caught him falling forward from the bench. His voice was drowned out by another bell chime, and then there was cheering coming from above them. More light was thrown into the gardens as the terrace doors bellowed open and the party started to pour onto the porch, applause and mirth erupting with them. 

It was Yuri’s birthday, and the kingdom was made of fools who knew not of privacy or dignity. 

They didn’t notice Yuri doubling over in pain. With the tolling and the cheering, Otabek could only hear distant exclamations from Yuri, and his own begging of what was wrong were lost to chaos. 

A crack split the air. Otabek was familiar with the sound by now, and he whirled to see a tree split clean down the center of its trunk. The two halves slowly split away, and the crowd had started yelling something more panicked than cheers. 

Yuri, weaker now than when he’d been pulled from the castle, let himself be dragged by Otabek without resistance. “The ocean,” he gasped. “Something is wrong with the ocean, I can hear it.”

Otabek’s brows furrowed and he strained to hear a single thing, but there was too much else going on. 

Both sections of the tree crashed to the ground, sighing with a final huge creak like a dying beast. 

It wasn't over. A twisting of roots erupted from the ground near their feet, bursting out of the earth like a nest of living snakes. Yuri was still clutching his head and wailing curses; Otabek did his best to tug him along toward the castle. It was too dark to see everything but he had the prickling sense that something else was coming, for whatever the cause of this uproar of nature was. Something Yuri, something – 

“The ocean,” Yuri hissed again, clutching at Otabek’s arm. Otabek maybe heard something; could it be the sea, or the rushing of his own blood in his ears?

And then someone in the crowd screamed. Otabek's head snapped up to see hands pointed above the garden, somewhere beyond, and Otabek’s limbs froze, his blood running cold, as he saw a dark mass swelling beyond the trees. It was almost invisible against the dark of the night. Next to him, Yuri cursed again and strained to get away from where the looming waters were rising.

His mind was set. An eerie calm set into his limbs, shock or desperation to protect Yuri, or a mix of both. 

“We’re leaving,” Otabek declared. “Run.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The water caught them at the stable, clearing past their ankles in seconds. The horses kicked with shrieking neighs, splashing with their clomping feet. Some rose on their haunches when Otabek tugged Yuri inside.

“Horses hate me,” Yuri said. 

“Oh well.” 

Otabek grabbed a saddle and reigns and began dressing the horse he’d rode the most, a mare named Solveny. He whispered praise and calm against her huffed grunts and scraping hooves while Yuri stood at the opening of the stable, eyes wide and debris-filled water streaming around his ankles. 

“What’s going on?” Yuri asked. His voice was calm but on the precipice of fear. Otabek hadn't witnessed _fear_ in Yuri before. Suspicion, annoyance, frustration, sure — but never fear. Suddenly he wanted nothing more to cup that fear in his hands and throw it out to sea. Which wouldn't be hard, consider water pooling around their feat. Yuri continued, “Where are we going? I thought you meant we'd go back into the castle.” 

“You can’t go back there,” Otabek said, and when the words were out he knew it to be true. Many witnessed tonight, and there was no doubt it would be blamed on the prince, even though they’d seen themselves he’d just stood by. Neither was it fair to keep Yuri locked in such a place. He understood that more than ever now. Things were changing. Changing for real. They were about to plummet out of the pattern of Yuri's previous life and they wouldn't be able to return. 

"Unless you want to go back," he offered. Now that it was pointed out that he was ripping the prince out of the kingdom by his roots, he couldn't continue with this if Yuri didn't feel — deep down and somewhere — that this was right. He hadn't intended to tear Yuri from the place he called home if Yuri wanted sameness more than he wanted answers. 

Yuri stared for a long while, unreadable thoughts layered thick in his eyes as he watched Otabek prepare Solveny. He guessed Yuri was rolling over the sorts of questions there was time for right now, the few things he could ask that could be answered in sixty seconds and would assure him of which path to take.

He stepped aside, opening the way for Otabek to lure Solveny out of the stable. "I trust you," he said. There was no time to ponder the way Otabek's heart hit hard against his ribs. 

Solveny shot wild eyes at the ruined night filled with seawater and screams. Otabek was sure he heard some calling for the whereabouts of the prince. 

He hoisted himself onto the horse’s back and reached his hand out toward Yuri, who stared at Solveny with hesitant eyes. “Don’t look at her like that,” Otabek said. “You’ll scare her worse.”

Yuri blinked hard a few times. Then he looked toward Otabek instead, expression set and firm, and took his hand. He still had fear racking his body, making his limbs uncertain, and Otabek practically had to drag him up; Solveny went stiff under them as if she was considering throwing them both off, but Otabek yelled out a command and clutched to her the moment he felt Yuri secured behind him. She tore off with a splash of muddied water in their wake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comments and kudos! <3 we're having lots of fun finally sharing this sweet lil tale. the adventure begins! ^^ 
> 
> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talle)


	5. Journey's End

The road was a dark snake shaped by even darker hills. An aged night brought them little in the way of moonlight, as clouds had begun to drift in like gentle, quiet beasts. Otabek let Solveny slow to a trot once they’d safely cleared Faherl. The knowledge that the kingdom would be occupied with the sudden disaster helped ease his mind. They had time to put fair distance between them. 

They did not speak for the first while of travel beyond Yuri slumping against his back a moment, jerking awake, and then mumbling, “Where are we going?”

“The next town is Adrestia, and we will stop there to find a place to stay and let Solveny rest.”

“Okay. And then?” 

“We need to go to Dwindlewelt.”

By the time the soft lantern light of Adrestia peaked through the hills, Yuri had nodded off three more times, and once Otabek had to swing an arm out to catch him before he toppled off. The resulting embarrassment kept him awake longer; when he drifted again, he caught himself with an aggressive start. 

Adrestia was a small village but much less rural than Dwindlewelt. Its nearness to the Kingdom gave it privileged status, of course. Otabek had been there only once a long time ago, and no one he knew well lived there. Which was good. He did not intend to be seen by anyone who might remember their faces tonight. 

He stopped Solveny. Yuri immediately jerked up – maybe he’d been sleeping sitting up, somehow. “Are we there?”

“Not yet.” Otabek slid off Solveny but kept a tight hold to the reins, as he was sure the horse would love to dart away from the prince for whatever reason she seemed to hold him in distaste. But she only huffed tiredly into the cool night. Perhaps even she sensed rest coming soon. Otabek continued, “You can’t be looking like a prince more than you already do. Do you have something under that jacket?” He held out his hand.

Yuri took it, stiffly moving down from Solveny. He landed hard on his feet and huffed, “Yeah.” He began to pull of his coat, golden stones flickering in the nearby town light. 

After the removal of his regal outerwear, he was left in a loose white shirt tucked into tight pantaloons. His boots looked a might too fancy for travel, but they were covered in mud enough by now to negate their finery. 

Otabek bundled the clothes inside-out, then they hoisted themselves onto Solveny again. It was probably some terrible single-digit hour in the night, two or three, and Otabek’s body ached for sleep. He was exhausted, physically, mentally, even emotionally, and he hadn’t even begun the hard part of explaining their impromptu journey to Yuri. 

Yuri’s compliance and silence lent him the knowledge that he might not be hard to convince. Nevertheless, Otabek’s chest panged to think of the years that Yuri spent questioning his own existence to make him go along with this so easily. 

They moved into the town, and despite fervent exhaustion and the apprehensive grip Yuri now held around his waist, he moved Solveny with a slow gait. Better to not seem suspicious by stampeding in during the middle of the night. 

Adrestia’s streets were mostly empty. A few windows slammed shut at their passing and a dog howled from his chain. Yuri was silent behind him, and Otabek wondered, before Dwindlewelt, when Yuri had been allowed to have free roam of some place beyond the castle. 

They came upon a tavern at a shadowed edge of town that still had a bustle of people in it, loud and probably drunk; he wasn’t keen on a crowd, but a highly inebriated crowd was the next best thing to none. 

He hopped down from Solveny and his own tiredness nearly buckled his knees. He swallowed hard and did his best to hold fast; he needed his strength to hold out just a little while longer. 

“Stay with Solveny,” he said. He looked around them, at the empty streets and buildings with blackened windows like eyes staring back at them. Swirls of fear and paranoia danced along his back. He unsheathed his dagger and slipped it to Yuri. 

Yuri took it with shaking hands. 

“I’ll only be a minute,” he reassured him, then turned toward the tavern. He pushed open the doors and they gave smoothly; no breeze reached among the buildings and the night was modestly warm, and so he entered without disturbance. 

The stale smell of beer filled his nose; the sounds of jostling and yelling made him alert and provided the comfort of slipping under the sound unnoticed. He didn’t look, but in his peripheral, he registered tables filled with men, jars of ale stomping and splashing, and the rise and fall of gruff inflections as tales were told. 

His eyes searched for the owner, a worker, anyone, and he spotted a blotchy-faced young man handling the money of a swaying patron. 

“S-sir,” the man pleaded. “Five pence more is all to fill your tab, that’s all I’m saying.”

“No one – person a pence,” the patron slurred. He threw his hands into the air as if that was a suitable gesture to accentuate his declaration. 

“I can’t let you leave if you don’t pay,” the man tried again, to which the other slurred more nonsense with slight more aggression than before. 

Otabek didn’t waste the opportunity. 

Faherl gave Otabek a stipend for his own expenses, and one to use for Yuri so that he didn’t have to carry his own money about. With kingdom money, five pence was nigh nothing, and he stepped forward with one pressed tight in his palm. 

“I’ve got this one,” he said. He held out the money.

The worker took it, relief calming the furrow of his brows, and the drunk man stumbled off without realizing he’d just been helped.

“Thanks for handling your friend, sir.”

Otabek shrugged. “Not one I know, just doing a favor.”

“Oh?” His eyes shifted behind Otabek, the worry returning to his face. 

“See, it’s late, and a friend of mine and I need a room.” He pulled an overestimate of the cost of a room out of his money pouch. “Can you help us out?”

The man stared at the money, then back at Otabek, then at the money again. Then he smiled and held out his hand in good gesture. Otabek took it to shake. 

“Indeed. My name is Emil. Happy to spare a room for the night.”

“Thank you, Emil. Stable space, too?”

“Of course.”

He went from shaking his hand to pouring the money into his palm, and he did the best to hide the severe relief from his voice as he thanked him again. 

Emil gave him a key and instructed him on the location of the room and space for Solveny. With the promise of sleep, Otabek’s limbs weighed heavier. He lugged himself outside to Yuri, who was now clutched tight to Solveny despite their earlier transgressions. He looked ravaged and weak in the golden light. He somehow still held that strange beauty, not looking out of place in the dark wiles of night. 

“Can we stay here?”

“We can. I’ve gotta board Solveny first, then we can sleep.”

Solveny went easily into the stable, even ignoring the other horses as they brayed at Yuri. She, too, felt the exhaustion to be worse than any other imprudence. Otabek secured her inside, and she huffed gratefully as Otabek rubbed a hand along her nose. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Before he pulled Yuri into the tavern, he warned, “Just follow my lead. We don’t want you to stand out.”

Yuri nodded. Despite the flush to Otabek’s face, he pulled Yuri to his side and pushed into the tavern again. He felt his face grow hotter as Yuri clutched into him, making himself seem meek and small. If all attention could be pulled away from him and rather onto the plainness of Otabek, standing taller and more prominent, then the risk of them being noticed or remembered would be much less. 

The jubilance of the tavern hadn’t wavered; they moved as casually as they could manage through the back. Emil nodded at them as they went, a sure smile on his face, and Otabek threw him back one of similar confidence. 

They were in room 12 at the end of a hallway. 

The room was as small, but the promise of security for the night made that pale in comparison to their relief. Even Yuri, someone who’d known nothing but luxury his whole life, stepped into it with the reverence of coming home. 

There was a small bed with white linens wrapped tightly over it. A wardrobe sat across from it, made of old splintery wood and adorning a mirror on top. The dust on it had been haphazardly wiped away. 

Centering it all on the far wall was a window. Its blinds, dark-green like a nighttime forest, were half-parted. 

Otabek crossed the room and shut them. He turned. 

Yuri stood in front of the shut door, arms crossed and looking around, a lost look in his eyes. But more than that, he looked tired. 

The bed would fit them both, but barely, but Otabek thought he should sleep on the floor to give Yuri the comfort to sleep tonight.

A carton of matches sat beside a few half-melted candles. Otabek lit them, and the sweet, ashy smell of gentle burning was faintly reminiscent of a safe place. 

“The washroom is down the hall,” he said. “I can walk you there and stand outside the door.” 

Yuri nodded but didn’t move. He stared at Otabek, eyes a little wider now, a little more awake, caught in the flickering candlelight like a cornered animal. “Do you want me to explain tonight?” Otabek asked. He wasn’t sure he could articulate their situation with the level of sensitivity required, not when he was this drained, but he would try.

“No, not really. It’ll be hard enough to sleep as it is.”

And so Otabek guided him through the hall to wash up, with Yuri quiet and the tiniest bit shaky. He'd never seemed so frail, and yet the castle walls were a force that had still seemed to use his energies more. If they were not here under the guise of escaping the kingdom, Yuri might be doing much better with the distance between him and the castle he’d been forced to call home. 

After Yuri crawled under the covers, Otabek left the room, locking it and pocketing the key. He washed up, too – the washroom was a meager line of washbasins, grimy, with the walls permanently moist with persistent steam. He watched his footing, grimaced at mold at the corner of wall and floor, and then felt his own shame rise at how accustomed he’d already become to the cleanliness of the palace. 

They would pass through Dwindlewelt tomorrow. He’d inconvenience Leo, swear him to secrecy, and ask him to lend enough materials for a forest’s journey. 

Back in the room, he stared at Yuri’s sleeping form: he’d carved himself a space under the blankets on a single side of the bed. His brows were furrowed, face creased in worried lines, though his even breaths were telltale of sleep. 

One of the candles had melted down and smothered out, leaving only two puffing desperately. It was an illusion, but darkness seemed to close in with each second, and the shadows brought a wave of doubt over Otabek. He’d dropped the remaining semblance of a life he had, tore a prince from his kingdom, and gone off with him in the night. There was no undoing this. Yet it was strange how normal and _correct_ all these truths felt.

Yuri shifted on the bed, rolling a little closer to the middle, blankets dragging with him. 

Otabek’s heart felt easy, steady, and sure. He had not imagined any of the strangeness around Yuri since the moment they’d met, and he could not afford to doubt that now. 

Something thwacked the glass behind him. He startled, his heart kicking his ribs, and he stared at the curtains sheathing the glass. Another smack, gentler this time, and then the sound of something scratching glass. 

His knife was on the dresser. Without further disturbing the quiet of the room, he moved toward it. Each step was excruciating with its slowness. Yuri still slept behind him, soundless and deeply lost from the world. 

He took the hilt of the knife, then pressed toward the window. The sound had stopped, but the shadow of something long and spindly moved underneath the curtain. It could be a tree, but it moved with purpose, like something creeping against the glass and not merely blowing in the wind. And there had been no wind tonight, he recalled with a heavy fear setting in. Unless a storm had rolled in within the past hour. 

Otabek took a breath and with a swift movement, he tore the curtain back. His muscles were braced to reach for the latch and plunge his knife through the moment the glass was removed, but he halted. Relief flooded him. It was just a tree. 

He frowned. 

The branch that’d hit the window was growing against it, grazing up the glass like a searching arm. He looked back at Yuri, and his brows were still pressed down, fighting a restless sleep. Otabek shut the curtain and latched the window again.

He ignored the scraping against the glass as he blew out the candles. He took a pillow from the bed and tossed it onto the floor, completely intent on flopping onto the hardwood and conking out despite the promise of a sore tomorrow, but a voice stirred through the dark. 

“What are you doing?” The sound of the branch ceased. 

“Getting ready to sleep.”

“On the floor?”

“Yes.”

Yuri paused, and when he spoke, his voice was coming down from a yawn. “Th— That’s dumb. Why?”

“I gave you the bed. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s room for both of us, and if you aren’t rested for tomorrow, we’ll both get killed somehow. I know that.”

Resigned to the partial truth in that, Otabek put the pillow back on the bed. He sat on it carefully, as if he might manage to put less of his weight on it. 

Yuri didn’t speak again as he got under the covers. Maybe he had already fallen back to sleep, though there was no scratching from the branch outside. His warmth was distant under the blanket, but there, and Otabek tried not to think about that. 

Despite the exertion tomorrow would bring, the truths he’d have to convince Yuri of, and the odds they were against, Otabek found sleep.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

As Otabek slept, he heard thunder: rapturous, loud claps slapping the earth, an angry god hammering his fists in a tantrum. And it kept going and going, longer than seemed reasonable for such a fit, until Otabek's eyes opened. Thunder still fell from inside the room and a voice in the bed with him asked, "Who is that?"

Scant light touched Yuri, and Otabek remembered. 

Someone was pounding on the door. 

"Open up!" 

Otabek jumped up, head spinning with just-woken fog. The blood pounded in his ears like echoes of his dream storm. A terrible, much louder knock shook the door. 

"We need to go," he whispered. The world still felt like a dream. Yuri was perhaps still partially asleep, because he nodded without argument as Otabek stumbled out of bed and reached to throw apart the window curtains. 

It was grey and bleak morning. They couldn't have managed more than five or six hours of sleep. 

He halted and gaped at what he saw outside the window. 

Yuri managed a mere, half-hearted, "Wha-?"

The creeping branch from the night before had twined around itself over and over again, in indecisive little circles that eventually formed a small platform of knotted wood and leafing twigs. It extended down a firm branch to a tree rooted outside the window. 

"This is —" Otabek started, a little lost for words, and a little lost for how Yuri might be perceiving this.

"Convenient," Yuri finished for him. "Go," he urged. Another pound at the door and a jimmying of the knob, and Otabek didn't need more prodding. He unlatched the window lock and opened it. The morning air seeped in, moist with its fog and cool with its night chill. 

"Go first," he said. Yuri didn't argue, hoisting himself onto the window's ledge with ease. He might be experienced with making escapes out the window, with the way he thoughtlessly tossed himself onto the curl of branches and flipped himself around to shimmy down the branch toward the trunk of the tree. 

Before Otabek followed, he turned and snatched Yuri's excess clothes off the dresser. They needed any sort of deniability they could afford that they'd been there, which meant leaving nothing behind. 

He threw them out the window and they fluttered toward the ground; Yuri was already halfway down the tree. Otabek followed, the scratching and rubbing of branches and bark snapping his mind further awake. His footing slipped on a branch as he tried to move onto the trunk, but he caught himself by snagging hold of another one. 

"Hurry!" Yuri called from the ground. 

Otabek took a breath and bent his knees to grab hold of the branch under his feet. He swung his legs down, felt the bright red scratching of wood against his palms before letting go and landing hard on the ground. 

Yuri had already snatched up his old garments. 

"To the stables," Otabek managed, and they darted off to retrieve Solveny. She greeted them with a snort and a stamp of her feet as if she'd sensed the pending urgency. Yuri grabbed the saddle and reigns and tossed them to Otabek, who began securing them as quickly as he could. He grit his teeth to keep focus. His hands wanted to fumble over the knots and buckles, to tire and ache from their climb down the tree, but he thought of the doom waiting for them if they were caught by Faherl soldiers. 

Yuri opened the stable doors and Solveny stepped outside. Otabek hoisted himself onto her, the mare stamping her hooves and snorting puffs of breath. 

He reached a hand for Yuri, who took it without hesitation this time, and dropped behind Otabek and wrapped his arms around him. Otabek yelled out to Solveny and she launched. 

The sky was greying, the dawn pushing in with bright persistence, and they raced against it. To Dwindlewelt, Otabek kept thinking, as if Solveny would hear him and know of their distance, know to go faster, to carry them over the hills and against the skyline like a streak of starfire.

Yuri clutched Otabek's back. His face tucked into his shirt. He wasn't used to the galloping, the hit of the horse, the minutes upon minutes of sitting on a creature over which you felt you had no true control. But Solveny was a good horse.

Otabek slowed Solveny when he felt the distance between them and Adrestia was far enough that their sudden disappearance had at least thrown the soldiers off. The dawn had broken by now, light bleeding through an array of clouds and inking into the palest of blue skies. The air was still tinted with purple cool, but without the clammy dew of nighttime. They breathed easier in the morning light. 

Thoughts clambered around Otabek’s head: about Dwindlewelt, how they’d enter discreetly, how they’d get help, and then what would come next, and then Yuri finally spoke.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“You know where,” Otabek claimed. Then, because now was not a time for secrets and games, “The woods.”

“By Dwindlewelt.” It wasn’t a question and didn’t call for an answer. “What’s —”

The question started but didn’t end. Not quite yet. 

Yuri let it float there for a while, the prompting of a query, the beginning of a truth; Otabek sympathized with the hesitance. Because once Yuri was told – or forced to admit – this truth, then there would be no chance he could return to a life of comfort and lies. Otabek supposed lies, for the fae, if they managed to sneak their way into one, were probably quite satisfying. Even if terrible, even if they were trapped in a prison of royalty and high walls that stood against their nature. 

_What_ stayed aloft between them, a safety net, a word that told them both enough for now: Yuri understood there were questions to be asked, truths to be told – and that was enough for a little while longer. As long as he stayed by Otabek’s side. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

As the morning crept on and Dwindlewelt was still a few hours away, Otabek told him. 

They hopped off Solveny to let her graze. Their own stomachs grumbled, but they had nothing, so they stood by with anxiety in their limbs to keep moving, and those nerves twisted to words and questions, until at last Obtabek was explaining everything he knew, everything he surmised. 

That Yuri was from afar, from the woods, and that was the cause of all his misfortune and alienation. No, he didn’t understand why, or how, but Otabek knew of fairies and their charms, and he had no doubts. 

“A changeling,” Yuri said. The word sounded made-up when he said it. 

A pause swelled between them, filled with the burbling stream and Solveny’s snorting into the grass. Otabek asked, “Are you okay?”

Yuri’s head tilted back. He stared at the sky, brimming now with fresh morning light. “I am. Because somehow, someway, I know I always knew. I want to be mad at you for telling me these things. It should feel like you’re accusing me of all the dumb shit everyone always accuses me of. But it’s like I already knew these things about myself. Even if I don’t understand them.”

Otabek looked at him until Yuri met his eyes. He said, “I’m going to help you understand. We’ll figure this out together.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Though Otabek recognized the road and trees, he couldn’t believe he was home until smokestacks were curling into the morning sky and roofs were poking through the green of trees. Yuri perked up and gripped Otabek’s waist a little tighter. 

As much as they wanted this to be the end of their journey, it was only a stopping point before a much longer one. Yuri felt tense behind him, but Otabek let himself dip into the relief of being home for as long as that could last. Yuri may not feel so, but they were much safer here than most places in Faherl. 

He’d met the challenges of royal life, met them with vigor and an empathy he saved for the most important conflicts, and it’d all lead him back to Dwindlewelt. 

The woods, too. He was suddenly, pressingly aware that despite his village’s affiliation with those dark, looming canopies, he wasn’t familiar with whatever dwelt inside. 

Yuri shivered in the cool air behind him, a light tremble like a leaf hanging onto a branch, and Otabek remembered he wasn’t going to face whatever was out there alone. Yuri belonged out there; this was the right thing to do. 

Otabek steered Solveny to the right of the village, taking them the long way around, along the lower slope of the hill that Dwindlewelt was built upon. 

“Why this way?” Yuri asked, voice stretched out by an oncoming yawn. 

“My friend who can help us some lives this way. And we need to avoid being seen.” 

Eventually, they removed themselves from Solveny, buying themselves further security by eliminating the risk of their height over the crest of the hill. 

Leo was letting the chickens out when, as quietly as they could go, Otabek and Yuri led Solveny onto his family’s land. Leo did a double-take. On the latter turn, his jaw dropped. Otabek saw the moment he physically had to restrain himself from yelling out in surprise. 

“Beka!” he hissed. He looked around and quickened the chickens out of their pen by dumping the bucket of seed into a pile. “What are you — who —” He stared at Yuri. 

Yuri fidgeted, eyes on the ground. No longer a prince. But to Faherl he still was. 

“Yes,” Otabek said with a hushed tone. “Prince Yuri. We need your help.”

Leo’s eyes flitted between them both. “What are you doing?”

“We need your help. I know this puts you in a dangerous position, and I’m sorry for that, but we will be gone soon. Can you help?”

He hesitated, eyes still on Yuri. Otabek knew all the twisted ideas one’s head could wrap around at seeing a country-born solider fleeing with a prince. Leo knew him better, had known him their entire lives, but he hoped his faith in him was stronger than any scrap of loyalty he had toward Faherl. 

It wasn’t a hard fight. 

“Of course. What’s going on?”

The pale but growing light felt like a scorch on the earth around them. “All I can say is that Yu — Prince Yuri is in danger.”

His friend nodded and asked, “What do you need?”

Leo stuffed a bundle full of blankets and garments, a burlap sack full of foods — any items he could scarce from his home without too much racket. Otabek lured Solveny to the Iglesias’s horse’s water troughs. Yuri watched, observant and silent as he’d been recently, a look of contemplation on his face. Otabek wanted to open his expression up and see the thoughts inside his head, but the idea made his face heat. Yuri would open up, if he wanted, in due time. 

He kept to Solveny and throwing fretted glances toward the Iglesia household. Over the hills, the sounds of Dwindlewelt waking began to rise: the bleating of goats, crowing of roosters, and calls of good mornings among neighbors.

“Is there anyone I should speak to for you?” Leo asked as he helped Otabek hoist bags over himself. He helped Yuri, too, hands trembling and eyes averted. 

Otabek hesitated. He looked at Yuri, standing there in the grey morning and awkwardly clutching their new cloaks and belongings to him. One of his hands was on Solveny; she snorted into the misty air. 

“Nobody,” he answered. “I’m sorry to put you in this position.”

Leo shrugged. “Sometimes things happen. Just promise me you’ll be safe.”

He nodded. “We can’t take Solveny with us. Can you take her, for now?” Solveny stomped the ground.

“You think it’s safe to travel on foot?”

“I think it might be too dangerous for her. I’m not sure what we will find out there.”

For a moment, Leo only stared, some look of distant thought in his eyes. “Will I see you again, Otabek?”

That made Otabek grin — and some of his apprehension lifted as he realized he was more afraid of the repercussions they would face from Faherl rather than the chance of them never returning. A part of Yuri was out there in the woods, answers to questions they couldn’t fathom deep in the lines of green and grey, in places the sun could barely reach. It wasn’t a question that they needed to uncover those secrets. 

But it was a question of what would happen to them — to Yuri — afterward. 

“You will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talle)


	6. Return to the Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why hello friends and welcome to the end of 2020, where i scrape myself together to publish a bunch of things i've been holding onto! 
> 
> i'm terribly sorry about the delays, especially for this fic which has been completed for months and has been patiently sitting in drafts. a special shoutout to [Marcella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcarellaPizza), the artist for this fic, for their extraordinary patience. thanks for checking in on me, too! i get remotivated to publish this fic each time i edit our remaining chapters and see your art ;~; 
> 
> so readers, i'm well and just like the rest of the globe, had a trying year. if you're reading this, then you've made it through and i'm so happy for that. we deserved better. but let's keep going. together. <3 
> 
> **so back to our boys,** otabek and yuri have fled the kingdom of faherl. they are nearing the forest at the edge Otabek's small home village, Dwindlewelt. they have suspicions the truth of yuri's whereabouts lies in these woods.

The forest was a wall of night at the bottom of the hill. The trees loomed taller over them as they neared until silence permeated the air. 

The waking Dwindlewelt seemed farther away than it had from the kingdom. The world down here by the forest was like a wholly separate one. 

Yuri faced the woods, morning sunlight edging down the hill behind him. Otabek tried to read his expression but reached nothing. He’d been hard to read since leaving the castle. 

“What are you thinking?” Otabek asked. 

Their lives were on a precipice — Otabek felt it well, that fragile line between before and after was along the roots of the trees they were about to cross. 

Not for the first time, he reflected on the irony of their situation. He'd been assigned to guard the prince and keep him safe not far from where they stood. Maybe he'd taken the qualifiers of his position too seriously. 

But it was not for his duty to Faherl that he was here now. 

“I’m thinking,” Yuri said, and then paused for some time before continuing, “that this feels right.” Yuri smirked and Otabek felt the hackles of the woods rise with a chill. 

“This is right.” He swung a hand toward the mouth of shadows before them. “Shall we?”

Yuri turned and nodded, brows slanted in determined focus. “Yeah.”

They stepped forward and passed under the sheath of canopies. 

Otabek did not expect some grand notice of their arrival. In fact, he’d quite expected the opposite.

As expected, he felt nothing. 

Yet Yuri perked up and stood straighter, eyes narrowing as he tried to peer into the spaces between trees. “Did you feel anything just now?” he asked. 

“No.”

He nodded and said nothing, so Otabek prodded, “Did you?”

“Yeah. Can’t explain it." His head tilted around, eyes following something Otabek couldn't see. There was just the trees, the leaves, the plain old woods. "Let’s go.”

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The world under the canopies was green and quiet and cool. It didn't feel like anyone else from Faherl would reach them out here in the thick of it all, which was a risky thought. 

Yuri kept looking around as they walked, wild-eyed and excited. A few times he caught Otabek's eyes, looking expectant, but Otabek had nothing to respond with other than a shrug and a smile. 

A hand grabbed him by one of his bag straps and yanked him backward. Otabek thought he was going to stumble into Yuri, but Yuri was suddenly a lot stronger than he looked. He caught Otabek with a quick brace of his arms and steadied him. “Don’t step on that!” 

“What?” Otabek gripped a nearby branch and braced to pull himself away. There was nothing he could see except the ground with trampled leaves and grown-over brambles. There was the lightest speckling of sun, a few stray slants breaking through the blanket of leaves above. He squinted, staring harder, and frowned. The light seemed to tremble, but that must be the wind rustling through the space above them. “I don’t see anything.”

“There’s — it’s — really?” Yuri balked like he couldn’t believe it. 

“Leaves, brush, light, that’s all.”

“Light? Like what?”

“Some patches of sunlight.”

Yuri stared at the space again. Shadows were drifting into the way of the dapples of sun. The forest floor remained the same as all the rest of the forest floor they’d walked over.

“What’s going on?” Otabek asked, a stab of discomfort catching him in the stomach. 

“I don't know,” Yuri said. “There's just so much. You really don’t see anything?”

Otabek looked harder, if looking harder was something even possible. He was staring at the simple space in front of them, nothing but leaves and sticks and hardy plants, and finally he sighed. “I guess we’re just in your territory now.”

Yuri rolled his eyes as if Otabek wasn’t entirely serious. “Don’t let your guard down,” he warned. “Let’s go this way.”

Otabek fell into step behind Yuri, and they crunched on. Yuri’s steps were quieter, and sometimes when he passed a mess of brambly shrubs or dense thicket of trees, Otabek had blink a few times to clear his head, for he seemed to disappear between the colors. 

The woods filled his head with a low, deep buzz. Maybe it was more like a growl coming up from the crunch of their steps, the squelch of muddied leaves, the high ripple of canopies. It seeped like a syrup of sound through the still air and filled his ears, tickling them, filling them, until the entire woods seemed to churn with noise. 

His lungs filled with a weak breath that made his heart trip against his ribs. He inhaled again and this time the air was sharper. With only the sweet tang of old leaves in his nose, his head cleared, and the cacophony dripped away. 

“You’re so slow!” Yuri called through the emptying sludge in his mind. He was stomping ahead, knocking branches aside and cleanly dodging the whip of limbs and swipe of tangled thorns. 

A trunk laid across the earth in front of them, a trample of underbrush under its mass. Yuri caught himself across the bark and hoisted himself up in a single jump. He turned back to Otabek and grinned, hands on his hips. His hair was loose and slightly messy. A single leaf stuck out near his ear. 

Otabek could almost forget he’d been locked into some sort of trance for a minute; something sank in his stomach as he sought through his memories and couldn’t remember their steps for the last few minutes. 

He thought to tell Yuri but he beat him to speaking: “This is great, isn’t it? My head feels so much clearer.”

He jumped off the log onto the other side and did a little spin in the dirt. Otabek crossed the log, a bit more stilted than Yuri. He tried not to show how strange he felt, at least for a little while longer. Yuri made it all those years outside the woods, so he could make it in the woods for a few days. 

The vision of a few days passed in his head and he wondered how long they’d actually end up out here. 

“You okay?” Yuri asked. Otabek was already over the trunk, standing and facing the woods. He blinked. He’d gotten distracted again and lost time. 

“I’m okay,” he lied. Yuri’s brows dipped, lips curving down, and before Otabek could think twice he lifted his hand to Yuri’s hair and plucked the leaf out. 

Yuri jumped back a step. “Wh-what are you doing?”

His face warmed, body traitorous, but he kept his voice level. “Just a leaf,” he said. “Sorry.” He supposed that was another lie. 

He let go of it and tried to look from Yuri as it fluttered down, but his eyes were stuck on Otabek, searching, as if he might be seeing something in the depths of Otabek like the woods.

The silence between them grew heavy and there was no breeze to push it out. 

Yuri's eyebrows whipped high and his head turned. "I think there's water near here."

Otabek could not immediately tell what he was referring to. When he looked about them, there was only the wild endlessness of the forest.

"This way," Yuri announced. 

He walked with a confidence Otabek had scarcely seen on him, though it was quite a commonality today. He trailed after, minding his attention by stepping where Yuri stepped to see if he could mimic his near-soundless walking. Stoney ground crumbled and sticks snapped where moments ago Yuri had practically floated across. 

The forest passed overhead with the heavy glow of a descending sun beyond the trees, forming webbed patches of orange and green that spun above their heads. 

It occurred to Otabek that he did not know where they were headed and he asked, “Do you know where you’re going?”

The question made him recoil with its stupidity. This was Yuri’s first time in here, and though Otabek called its borders home, it was the first time he was deep between the trees, too. He’d thought they’d make it a safe distance inside and discuss where to start, but he’d been so brain-fogged he’d let them keep walking in an endless foray with Yuri in the lead. 

“Into the woods,” Yuri answered like it was obvious. Which it was, Otabek supposed, but not comforting. Yuri spoke again, a hesitance in his voice this time. “It’s weird but I feel like I know where I am. I don’t want to talk about it much though, so just trust me, if you can.” He looked back halfway, face caught between hope and a preemptive scowl. 

“I trust you,” Otabek affirmed. 

He saw the quick curve of a smile before Yuri’s head turned forward again. 

“But I guess we should find someplace to camp for the night?” 

“Yeah. A little further, though.”

He followed Yuri another indiscriminate distance, eyes starting to strain through the dark. Yuri stopped as they reached a stiffly silent break in the trees with an ominous glow of scarce light. Nestled among the trunks and patches of shrubs, they found a patch of mossy ground carpeting the clearing. They looked around, padded the place with their shoes a few times, and nodded to one another. 

The sky was a fragment of pink-orange above their heads. The softly lit space held a timeless aura, but perhaps that was maybe the magic in the trees.

“Will we be safe here?” Otabek asked. Another stupid question. Were they safe — really safe — anywhere? 

“Yes.” Yuri plopped his bag on the ground and dropped to his knees. He pulled out the blankets and cloaks stuffed inside and started rolling them out. His hands roamed across the fabrics, searching, then he reached underneath to throw out stones and twigs. 

Otabek ran his hand across the trees, pushing on the ones with thinner trunks and assessing which would be the best for tying a tent to. 

He started tying a large, heavy blanket around the trunks with ropes, creating a cover over their heads and loose walls of cloth that draped down around them. It wasn’t much of a shelter because there hadn’t been time to prepare, and what Leo could spare was meager. Otabek was sure this was an old quilt he’d pulled out of the hayloft, actually, because it smelled faintly of horse and feed. 

The night was catching a chill as the dark pushed in. Otabek must have grown accustomed to noisy castle life, because the forest was a shout of silence that made his head feel empty.

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

Their night ended with a low-burning fire outside their makeshift shelter. They’d tied open a small opening so they catch the warmth of the fire and its light, and they shared their bundle of food and stored water with little talk. 

The excuse for their lack of talking could be how tired they were, or how there was still cold on their shoulders despite the small fire and the wrap of blankets, but Otabek found himself with many things to say, and no way to say them. Not unusual for him, he supposed. Just worse now.

Yuri stared into the fire, now a patch of embers smoking in the dark, with a faraway gaze. It hit his eyes as two feral curls of light. Otabek watched him without notice of the time. It could be passing, or he could be losing hours in the span of seconds as the forest weaved its strange magic through his mind. Right now, he didn’t care much, because there was nowhere else to go tonight, and he was a far cry from being able to detect anything out here before Yuri would. 

They ought to sleep soon. There’d be walking, and seeking some foreign depth of the forest Otabek couldn’t imagine, and he sincerely hoped he wasn’t walking them to their deaths. 

Yuri’s voice is a branch cracking in the slew of silence: “You were right.”

Otabek balked. “What?”

“About everything.”

“Are you only now believing me?”

Yuri shook his head, the shadows of firelight showing the scowl on his face. 

Otabek took a breath and asked, harsher, because the silence and the confusion were building to be too much, “Are you okay?”

Yuri turned to look at him, a canvas of gold and fire and the earthly colors of the blankets draped over him, and Otabek saw the lights against the hills once more. 

Yuri laughed. Truly laughed, threw his head back and rang out a sound so unfamiliar that Otabek wryly realized Yuri didn’t often make such a sound. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

A branch swung toward Otabek. He dodged it, and when he looked up he'd lost sight of Yuri. Not for the first time today. 

“I see a stream!” 

“How did you get up there so fast?”

Yuri stood on the sloped side of a fallen tree that was wedged between the split trunk of another. He was gripping a branch for balance and staring down their path, his other hand above his eyes to block a slip of sunlight breaking through the trees.

Ever since last night, Yuri was full of brazen energy, running back and forth through the forest and swinging on low limbs. He pointed out a hundred and one things to Otabek that he could sense, see, feel in the forest, nuances he'd never been privy to in the confounds of a castle trapped by a sea.

As happy as he was for him, Otabek also felt rage for Yuri — for a life foolishly robbed. Yuri must be angry, too, because anger was in the way his voice drifted off, listless and dry, dead leaves falling, when he remunerated the differences in his mind here compared to _there. _

But then he’d startle at something else new and exciting.

Yuri pushed off and half-skid down the bark in a shower of splinters and dust. “Let's go this way.” 

“To the stream?”

“Yeah, I feel good about it.”

Such was their reasoning for many things now. 

Soon the stream was visible even from the ground. It babbled; the air was cooler in the wet shade. Then Otabek stopped walking. 

There was a horse by the bank of the stream. Its pelt was white, pure white. Sunlight threw a mist of glitter across its body like fresh snow. It watched him from the side, with one large, focused eye. 

He didn't know where Yuri was, but he didn't feel compelled to call to him. He'd come eventually. 

His thoughts were somewhere in the stream in front of that beautiful horse. Glistening and wavering under the flowing water. Something might be wrong, wrong with the way his mind was filled with cold mud and stone, but then the horse stamped a foot and any worry was squashed. It bowed its head toward him. 

He stepped forward and reached out a hand. 

The thoughts in the water flailed and splashed. 

Something wrapped around his wrist and yanked him back, away from the horse, which cried out a neigh less lovely than the animal looked. It was a garbled and terrible sound, and suddenly Yuri was in front of Otabek and shaking him by the shoulders. 

“Snap out of it!”

He blinked. The thick cold disappeared from his mind, and a sound of mad splashing and growling made him turn back toward the stream. 

His heart could have stopped. The white pelt was now starkly dark, colored like the ground under rotting leaves. Hanging off the beast's body was a matted mess of something long and draping like sopping weeds. 

Otabek’s blood went cold. Bright eyes were now black, sightless voids where eyes should be. 

The thing edged the water, back legs twisting down and extending somewhere below the surface, rooting it into the river. It was hideous, a terrifying amalgamation of rot and dark magic that swamped the air. 

His mind was tumbling over how, moments ago, he’d seen this as a beautiful creature glistening by the steam. 

“Run!” Yuri yelled. 

Otabek broke into a run close behind Yuri. A shriek followed them and Otabek felt the seductive urge to turn back and look at the thing once more. He resisted by focusing on the ground behind Yuri's feet, watching where he stepped and following him exactly. 

It was challenging to keep up; where Yuri's feet hit and lifted without avail, Otabek was caught and snagged by the forest. Rocks burst out from under him, the ground gave, but then they were far from the wailing forest beast and Otabek was only tired from the taxing sprint. 

He dropped the backpack he carried and bent over to catch his breath. Yuri seemed less affected, but he stilled breathed heavily. He looked around them with sharp, quick eyes, like he expected the thing to burst out of the foliage at any moment. 

"Thank you," Otabek managed. "What was that?"

"I don't know! A monster though, clearly. And you started walking right toward it."

"It - it didn't look scary at first."

Yuri narrowed his eyes and went back to staring around them. "At first," he echoed. He paced slowly around a few trees, hands outstretched to feel their bark and examine them. 

"What's wrong?" Otabek prodded, but Yuri didn't answer. His eyes scanned their environment like he was reading a thousand things that Otabek wasn't, listening to so much he couldn't hear, and Otabek wondered if that was true. 

How separate their worlds were. It made him sad to consider. 

"I think," Yuri started, and he had the look of someone about to divulge a deep secret on his face, "that I know what to do." He reached out his hands. 

Otabek looked between them and Yuri's face. His expression was set and confident. 

"Take them."

Otabek peered around their immediate surroundings as if an explanation would materialize. Yuri waited. 

With care not to move too abruptly and run the risk of breaking some invisible spell, he reached out and took his hands. 

“Follow me,” Yuri said. In a single confident movement, he pulled Otabek backward, stepping back while pulling Otabek forward. Then they waited. 

Nothing happened. Otabek’s heart thumped hard with the passing second, waiting for each consecutive one to be the moment something revealed itself. 

The woods remained trees and shadows and distant sun. 

Yuri stamped his foot on the ground, snapping his hands from Otabek and disrupting the silence all at once. He huffed. “I thought I had something figured out!” 

“What should have happened?”

He threw his hands up. “I don’t know! But you’re clearly not seeing things right.”

“Oh?” Otabek rubbed at the back of his head, looking once more about the plainness of the bark, the roughness of the plants. “What do you see?”

Instead of answering, Yuri whirled around, still flustered about his tiny failed plan. “Something is missing,” he mumbled. His eyes scanned their vicinity; Otabek waited rather than questioned further. Clearly Yuri was in a world of his own now, a place Otabek couldn’t reach. 

“Agh! Just follow me.” Yuri went past Otabek and on into the woods, pointedly not in the direction of the water. He waved at Otabek to follow. He hoisted the bags back onto his back, albeit a tad haphazard, and chased after him. 

Their walk was filled with Yuri mumbling to himself and kicking up leaves and popping up behind trees like he was trying to surprise something. Otabek drifted in and out of the mind-fog the woods put in his head, the spurts of flying leaves and dirt and Yuri’s grumbling keeping him lucid. He prepared to raise the issue of him losing focus when he found himself thinking dreamily back to that lovely white horse, but Yuri yelled out, “This will work!”

A speckling of mushrooms were scattered across the forest floor. Otabek recalled the warnings that came with tales to not stumble into forest-borne rings of anything, especially mushrooms. He might have a better idea of what Yuri was trying to do. 

“Now,” Yuri said, positioning himself between ring of mushrooms and Otabek and holding out his hands again. 

Otabek swallowed hard, throat thick and heart beating high with anticipation again, and took his hands. Soft, thin hands, but then they clasped his and he remembered to not be fooled into thinking Yuri was even slightly frail. 

"You may come into the forest." Yuri stepped back and over the line of mushrooms, pulling Otabek with him. 

The world crystallized like frost blasting over a pane of glass. Then it shattered. 

It was still the woods that they stood within, but there was nothing familiar. The light hanging above the trees was a lavender glow that bled to purple shadows down below the branches. And the trees themselves — they were moss-covered, brimming with vines and strange, colorful plants climbing up to reach for the strange light. 

Nothing marked their closeness to the land of Faherl, or even Dwindlewelt, and the air was full of caws and crows and hoots of creatures Otabek didn't recognize.

"It worked, didn't it?" Otabek looked at Yuri the first time since entering the new world — _his_ world. His heart did a thing akin to beating so hard it hurt, and his mind blanked again as if the fairy fog hadn't lifted at all. 

In the softly colored forest, Yuri’s own hues of green and gold were alight. Dimly, like his outlines were suddenly a little bright, his face a bit more open, his eyes less guarded. 

His emotions were vivid, wrung out of his soul into the air around him; Yuri was free here. He must feel it spiraling from every centimeter of his body, the essence of being _alive,_ that heavy core in one's chest that just _felt._ It was the type of thing humans like Otabek took for granted. 

"It did." His voice was a whisper, mind too weighed upon by the full knowledge of the snares Yuri had been tangled in. 

He was angry then, too, at whatever cruel circumstances allotted him such pain. 

"This is probably a lot for you," Yuri said, tone suddenly solemn. The change was so quick it took Otabek a moment to notice. "You don't have to keep helping me, you know."

Otabek's brows dipped and he shook his head. "Wait, what?"

"I know what it's like to be in a world you're not from. You are the prince's guard, not mine. I promise if I find the true one, I can bring him to Dwindlewelt. You don't have to keep helping me."

He was mad at how slowly he was able to formulate a response, but he did not know where Yuri was pulling this idea from. It wouldn't make sense for Otabek to return to Dwindlewelt and _wait_ for Yuri to come out of the woods again, true Prince of Faherl in hand. 

"Yuri, I —"

"I should've told you before we were so deep in the woods. I'm sorry." He ran a hand through his hair and that bright aura started to dim. "I can help you out, make sure we don't run into... stuff like that _thing_ again, you know."

Otabek held up a hand. "Hold on."

Yuri held his hands up in front of himself and scowled at them, like they were the cause of everything. "I've been stupid. I should have told you to leave me alone from the moment we realized what I was. I think I just..."

"Yuri. Do you think I'm only here with you as Faherl's Prince's bodyguard?" He gestured to the random woods around them. "Whoever they are?"

"I mean, that's your assignment."

"No."

"It's not?"

Otabek sighed, a little frustrated now. Yuri was smart but he was never one for noticing when someone was actually on his side. 

"I don't care what my job is, Yuri. I haven't for a very, very long time. I'm here because we're _friends."_

"What?"

"Friends, Yuri. I like you."

"Oh." Yuri had the same face he'd had when Otabek told him he was probably, most likely, a changeling. Dumbfounded with a pinch of understanding. "Wow," he whispered. "This whole time?"

"Basically, yeah." Otabek shrugged and looked to the side, ignoring the slight heat he felt on his face. It wasn't really a terribly embarrassing thing to admit to someone you considered them a friend, but he still felt it like a lover’s confession.

"This was about _me_ this whole time?" Yuri asked for clarification again. It was ridiculous that Yuri hadn't known this. It was even harder to believe. All the times Otabek helped him, he misconstrued it for him doing a mere job. 

That was the world he'd been raised in, though — one where he was little more than a royal burden. 

It occurred to Otabek that Yuri asked him a question. He gathered his wits to answer, then flustered once again at the few words he knew to say. OF COURSE he liked Yuri. Of course. 

But suddenly the words felt like they'd mean something else on his tongue.

Yuri's head whipped to the side. "Someone's here," he whispered in a rush, and the sentiment alone was enough to make Otabek's blood freeze like he was locking eyes with the horse-monster again. 

Then he heard it, too - a rustle in the woods like something coming their way. It sounded as ungraceful as himself. 

The knights, he realized. They were still in pursuit of the kidnapped Prince! 

"There you are," someone said. The voice was familiar, but the last person Otabek expected a confrontation with, so he still felt the surprise when he whirled around. "I thought I heard someone angering the kelpie."

Viktor Nikiforov stood before them, hand on the hilt of his sword and face alight with a grin like he'd won a game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> expect the next chapter soon. very soon! :D thanks again 
> 
> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcarellaPizza/pseuds/MarcarellaPizza)


	7. The Other Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new years!

Otabek grabbed the hilt of his weapon. Yuri stepped behind him. It occurred to Otabek that Viktor had said something about a _kelpie,_ and he hesitated around his next words. 

"What are you talking about?"

Viktor sheathed his sword and his hand fell away from the hilt. "Don't worry, I'm on your side."

Otabek blinked, taken aback, then brought his face back to a scowl. "I said, what are you talking about?"

"I suggested to the knights that Prince Yuri would not end up anywhere farther than Dwindlewelt. Meaning not even Otabek, his kidnapper, would be crazy enough to drag him into the woods beyond the kingdom."

A pause hung between them all. Otabek could practically feel the swirl of anger and nerves coming from Yuri behind him. Vikor had just said a lot of interesting things, but he hadn't answered any of their questions. 

Probably sensing the unwavering tension, Viktor put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Otabek's eyes narrowed. The forest light fell on him in strange ways; his silvers and shimmery edges were muted with blues and greys in the strange auric light. 

Finally, Viktor said, "I know Yuri isn't the real prince."

"You do?" Yuri burst out, now taking a step in front of Otabek. "How long?"

"A while, unfortunately."

"And you didn't bother mentioning that to me?"

There was sympathy in the smile that Viktor gave him. "I'm sorry, Yuri. I really am."

"That isn't an answer."

Viktor sighed and rolled back his shoulders. He looked around their vicinity, thoughtful, and continuing to take his time answering all their questions.

The quirks and oddities of Viktor were coming back to him now. He'd been so focused on Yuri that he hadn't thought about how else his time at the palace was strange. A thought struck Otabek; he asked, "Can you... _see_ the forest?" 

Viktor's eyes flickered to Yuri before resting on Otabek again. He grinned. "I can."

Otabek's mouth fell open, words not yet formed, but a wind hit the trees above them and started a raucous of cracking branches and cawing birds. "Get away from us," Yuri said flatly. "This isn't about _you."_ The trees above them creaked.

Otabek's hand returned to the hilt of his knife, but for what he did not know. Yuri stood between them, the betrayal and anger bleeding green and red into the colors around him. 

“We should talk,” Otabek offered quickly, and he was relieved to see Yuri's shoulders fall back at the words. 

Viktor replied, "Yes. I want to help."

Yuri shot Otabek a wary look before resuming a glare on Viktor. "How can you?" 

"Well, I clearly know a thing or two about the fae." 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ: 

Viktor didn't make that bad of a forest companion - he was skilled at hacking through the underbrush, which was nice for Otabek's arms - but Yuri fumed silently through a lot of their walking, when before he'd been eager to talk with Otabek. 

Otabek missed his voice, and Viktor's chipper monologues weren't quite the same as a replacement. He wouldn't explain to them how much he knew, or what, or where he got his information, though he promised they would understand more once they went deeper into the forest. 

At least the magical elegance of the fae side of the forest didn't cease to charm him. With a clearer head and seeing the world for what it was, the thick cloud of confusion had lifted with the forest's other illusions. Traversing the forest was easier, although sometimes he got distracted marveling at the colors. 

"Georgi is a mess, by the way," Viktor let them know. In a pitchy, mocking voice, he echoed Georgi's whining, "Prince Yuri made off in his ball attire! It'll be ruined!"

Viktor either didn't realize he was better off keeping quiet or he didn't care. 

Otabek asked, "Doesn't he think I kidnapped the Pr - Yuri?"

"Well," Viktor drew the word out, thoughtful, before continuing, "there are some who think Yuri is up to his typical ways again."

Yuri laughed and kicked the ground, sending a splutter of colored leaves before him. "Damn right I am." He shot Viktor a look. "But I still hate that you're here, too, even if you say you're on our side."

"It wasn't easy slipping away from the rest of the knights. You should trust me, just for that."

Yuri grunted and kicked the leaves again. "Do you even know if we're going the right way?"

Viktor tilted his head and grinned. "I know. But you do too, right?"

He didn't answer but scowled deeper, and Otabek hoped one of them actually knew where they were going.

The unspoken words from earlier were distant, but they hovered between the glances Otabek and Yuri shared. He wanted to talk more, more about what this was all about, and how Yuri could rely on him, but Viktor trailed behind them unbeknownst to what he'd interrupted. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

They stopped to eat when the sun was well above them. They shared a meager amount of bread and dried meats; Viktor ate from his own small stash of food, which Otabek was grateful he'd had the hindsight to bring, since feeding a third person wasn't something they planned for. 

Fatigue was making its way through Otabek's limbs, and concern was creeping into his chest. He worried for Yuri, who walked warily among the trees with still-wide eyes at his new world. Maybe there were still things he could see that Otabek was unable to, secrets the forest kept from human eyes. 

Viktor became quieter, and each time Otabek glanced back, his eyes were at his feet, brows furrowed. After a particular stretch of silence, Otabek was prompted to ask, "Are you positive you do not want to share what you know?" 

Viktor's eyes met his. "Tell me, Otabek," he said. "Where do your loyalties lie?"

There was an edge to his voice that made Otabek stop walking. Ahead, Yuri didn't notice and trudged forth, but Viktor stopped, too. 

Otabek's eyes narrowed. "To Yuri."

Viktor's smile was soft. He nodded. "Good. He was forced to bloom too early, after all. He'll need someone by his side."

He ignored the attempt to throw him off. "Where do _your_ loyalties lie?"

"To Faherl," he said with a shrug. 

"Wait -"

"Hey!" Yuri shouted; they both flinched. "Get over here!" 

In front of Yuri was a structure that had to be man-made or... made by something. It was a spiral of twigs and branches woven into a circle, held together by vines. Through it was a continuation of the forest — more woods, leaves, earth. But when Otabek stared into it, he felt the prying fog of the forest's illusions in his head, fluffing his mind and making him want to turn away. 

"Looks like we're here," Viktor announced. 

"They know," Yuri whispered. 

Otabek watched Yuri. His hands were fists at his sides, eyes wide and unfocused as they stared into the circle. He was a beauty risen out of the leaves, a fae among the forest, but he still had a choice. 

"Yuri," Otabek said. Yuri looked up at him, blinking and suddenly looking quite tired. "You don't have to do this." And before he could answer that, he rushed to add, "But if you want to, I'll be with you."

The high rustle of the canopies, the afternoon calls of strange birds, and Yuri standing there at the center of the world — Otabek was aware of little else, not even Viktor standing some near distance away, watching in silence. 

"My friend," Yuri said and held out his hand. 

Otabek nodded and affirmed the gesture by taking it. "Let's go."

They stepped through the circle, their feet lightly crunching over leaves and Viktor's somewhere behind them. 

*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:

The world wasn't different beyond here, except it was full of others. Beautiful, strange, stilted beings that had the woods in the lines of their faces. They wore the canopies against their skin, with leaves and twigs woven into clothes. Some of them were in the trees, strung across the branches like cats. And there were others that were small, smaller than a human child, but had the appearance still of an adult. 

The fae. 

And every single one of them was already staring at them as they entered. A hush rippled through the forest, one that even the animals obeyed. The three stood still in the starkness of sudden attention. 

Then the fae began to move; it took Otabek a moment to realize they were starting to bow, knees hitting the ground or torsos swinging low, depending on whether or not they were hanging somewhere in the air. 

Yuri's hand tightened in his and Otabek could feel his fear: that still, even here, he was something he didn't feel was right. Some sort of royalty, bestowed with titles and tactless politics. 

Except another fairy stepped forward from the fray who hadn't yet bowed. Her narrowed eyes analyzed them all, then stopped on Viktor. She smiled. 

"You've returned, as promised, with our family. Welcome back, Nikiforov, Prince of Seas."

Words rose and fell in Otabek’s throat. This didn’t make sense, and yet he knew he was the one who didn’t understand. 

Viktor bowed to the fairy. “Thank you, Fairy Lord. It’s an honor to be amongst the Woodland Fae once again.” He rose and gestured to Yuri and Otabek, who were dumbfounded and quiet. “I had help this time, though. This human, Otabek, did most of the work.”

“Oh.” The Fairy Lord smiled at him. Her hair was like a wave of fire touching her shoulders, somehow bright in the soft purple light. “Then I must thank you.”

“I did this to help _Yuri,"_ he said, emphasizing his name.

Her smile did not falter. “Of course. And you, Yuri,” she said, turning toward him. “Thank you for your sacrifice in defending our people. Welcome home.”

All eyes were on Yuri, but Viktor said, "Actually —"

"You think I did what?" Yuri interjected. 

"— he doesn't know yet."

A rush of whispers went back through the trees. Eyes were darting between the three of them.

Otabek noticed a fairy sitting among the others, plenty odd and fairy-meek, though he didn't quite look like something from the woods. His eyes were darker and so was his hair, and the world didn't seem to sit right around him. 

But this fairy stared hard at Yuri. Too hard, like he was trying to uncover something; Otabek didn't like it. He made a mental note to pay attention to that one.

The Fairy Lord looked Yuri up and down, not unsmiling, but concern had creased her forehead. "Why?"

"You see, this time, the chosen human born that night was actually the Kingdom's prince."

Another wave of whispers and flitting eyes. Her eyes widened and she looked at Yuri again like seeing him anew. "Oh, I see."

"What the hell is going on?" Yuri punctuated his words with a stomp of his foot. It was a soft thud against the earth. In a spray of dirt, a root burst out of the nearby ground. It rose with a reaching, twisting body, then wilted and fell to the ground just as fast. 

That would have been a disaster back in the Kingdom. Otabek's nerves pitched in preemptive defense. 

No one paid the outburst any mind. The Fairy Lord watched Yuri like he was suddenly their prince, too. 

Viktor started speaking. "There’s a bit of an issue with my people, the Sea Fae, you see."

_Sea Fae. _

Yuri's eyes narrowed. 

The Fairy Lord picked up, seeming to want to spare Viktor the trouble. "When the forest reached the shores long ago, we lived alongside the Sea Fae. The Sea Fae’s magic is sourced from deep wells of ancient sea magic, and it brings a desire to encroach on the land. Our element bordering the shore kept this only a desire that made the sea forever stir. But as the forest has been cut back deep into the land, we've lost that balance. The Sea Fae threaten to encroach across the land at last. 

"When the sea starts to grow untamed, we take one of our new ones and find a sea-side child to swap them with. For 18 years, the presence of a Woodland Fairy near the sea is enough to hold up protective magic for many years more."

Otabek searched the crowd of fairies again, remembering one of these was a human and the true prince. He stopped on the dark-haired fairy again; he was now watching Viktor, mouth parted a little as if in awe. 

Viktor cleared his throat. "I am the estranged Sea Prince, run away and in assistance to the forest because I want to stop the sea from destroying any life."

Yuri shook his head. “Why couldn’t you just tell me this?”

Viktor sighed. He didn’t look proud as he answered, “A lot of lives depend on this balance. You holding such an important title to the humans made this so much riskier.”

Yuri glowered harder but didn't respond. Otabek was uncomfortably reminded they had an audience.

"Speaking of humans," Viktor said to the Fairy Lord, "where is he?"

She smiled and nodded, and the air seemed to carry her back with how smoothly she stepped away. 

"Yuri," she said, but she wasn't facing him. And she didn't say his name correctly, either. She stretched the vowel, pulling it apart into something that could be held a little longer. _Yuuri._

The dark-haired fairy pulled away from the group and walked toward them. His head was cast down, eyes to the ground as if even the shade was too bright for him. 

"It seems you're a prince."

"I — I can't, Your Highness." He bowed his head lower. "I would be unable to blend in."

"You won't be alone," she said and looked at Viktor. 

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Viktor introduced. He bowed a little to meet Yuuri's eyes. "I'm in service to the Kingdom, and therefore in service to you. Consider me your new personal guard."

"You!" Yuri yelled from next to Otabek, making him nearly jump. Otabek's skin prickled as the eyes of the forest fell upon them. Yuri stomped toward Yuuri and pointed a finger at him. "Are YOU okay with this?"

Yuuri appeared unable to meet his eyes. A tree stood near him, and he reached idly out to the trunk to pick at the bark. "I've known this would be the way. I'm sorry you did not." Otabek noticed his complexion and composure were much more similar to the king and queen. He was soft, gentle, quiet — such a stark opposite from Yuri. 

Yet somehow they'd walked similar paths. 

No one spoke for a few moments, and then Otabek gathered his wits and cleared his throat. Eyes fluttered to him. 

"Would Yuri have to stay in the forest?" His question was directed to the Fairy Lord.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean — Would he be _trapped_ here?"

Her brows furrowed. "No. The earth is our home, with only the sea and sky as borders. And of course," she grimaced, eyeing Otabek a little harder, "Man-made borders."

Otabek stared hard at her, looking for traces of deceit or hidden meaning in her words. Then fingers trailed between his, and his head whipped around to Yuri. He smiled just enough for Otabek to see, and Otabek composed himself. This was for Yuri's freedom. If what they'd presented him was true, then... 

That was all they needed to know for now. 

And Yuri's smile broke apart a little wider, a little hopeful, a blossom breaking to bloom and meet the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> our lil fairy tale is coming to a close! one more chapter~
> 
> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcarellaPizza/pseuds/MarcarellaPizza)


	8. Epilogue: Happily Ever After

Otabek wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaned against his rake, and stared out over the twilight orange bordering the trees. The chill was coming in with the night, bringing on the first inklings of autumn's end. 

Next to him, Yuri sighed. He didn't have a coat on but the chill was tangible in the slight tremble of his breathing. "It really does get colder out here, doesn't it? Or maybe I never noticed because I was always in the castle."

"Probably a bit of both." 

"I think we're about done here, aren't we?"

The harvested fields outstretched around them were beginning to mirror the sky with a dull grey. "Yep. An incredible harvest, thanks to you."

Yuri shrugged and fought down what was definitely a slightly pleased smirk. "I didn't do that much. Just some, uh," he gestured with his hands, "magic, or whatever."

"Just some magic," Otabek mocked, smiling, leaning with the rake closer to Yuri. Yuri didn't move away but rolled his eyes. 

"And I _guess_ that other Yuuri helped some with those tax-thingies he changed, yeah?"

Otabek grinned. "Spent 18 years as a prince and you really never did figure any of it out, did you?"

Yuri threw his hands up in defense. "If only I'd had a great guard like Viktor to help me out. Hey!" He laughed as he dodged a playful swipe from Otabek's rake. Something tugged the rake back — a root had burst out of the cold earth and wrapped around the base.

"Oh, look, just _some magic_ again," Otabek teased.

Behind them, Solveny gave an unruly snort. 

Otabek twisted the rake a few times and tore it from the root's grasp. The dark was descending quickly, and other villagers were beginning to make their way back from the field. Gentle puffs of blue light responded to the returning farmhands; they sprung up across the fields, soft lights leading the way back to everyone's homes. 

A pale glow lit a few paces from Solveny. She huffed again, less disgruntled than the other hundred times they’d appeared. 

"I guess we're heading back, too," Otabek said, tossing his rake into the wagon hitched to Solveny. It was full of the rest of the field tools they’d collected now that the harvest was complete.

They lead Solveny back toward Dwindlewelt, blue lights hovering around them. It was always so much quieter when the cold fell, the world coming to rest with the winding down of the seasons. 

They stowed their collected tools in the Altin’s shed and took Solveny into her stable. Otabek wrapped his scarf tighter around him, the cool night threatening to pull all the heat from him.

Wisps of blue light still dotted the fields. A few led off into the forest, lighting the edges with a glow of inky indigo. Otabek nodded toward them. “Following them tonight?”

Yuri gave him an impatient look. “Yes, Beka.”

Otabek shrugged and then, grinning, started turning to walk away, “Okay, good night!” 

“Stop it, you’re so embarrassing,” Yuri whined and grabbed his wrist to pull him back. “Are you going to do this every night?”

“Do what?” he asked and relished in the scowl he got. He wasn't one for an annoying level of humor, but when it came to Yuri, these days he often couldn't help it. 

“Pretend you're not coming with me,” Yuri chided, and before Otabek could even muster up a response, Yuri pulled up on his toes and kissed him. 

The heat rushed to his face, and he immediately knew himself to be a fool for acting so emboldened. As if he’d forgotten how powerless he’d been to Yuri’s influence the moment he set eyes on him that fateful night in Dwindlewelt so many months ago. 

Yuri pulled away, scowl still on his features, but his eyes held a proud glint. 

Right now Yuri was like a spark of warmth in the night, but he was also a spark in the world. Yuri would never admit it, but he’d changed _everything,_ happenstance or not, fate or design, it didn’t matter. He’d done it. And despite the ups and downs they'd had, Otabek believed everything was for the better.

Faherl had been in chaos by their runaway. Their return with Viktor and a strange young man they claimed to be the _real_ prince further fragmented the kingdom. It was probably only through Viktor’s persistent retelling of their tale — and the fact that Yuuri’s parents burst into tears at the sight of their stolen son — that convinced the kingdom of any prior disillusion. 

Even then, a ripple of mistrust had been set forth. But healing could happen. Prince Yuuri was hard not to love; the Woodland Fae had raised him to be peaceful but bold. And his increasingly close relationship with Viktor, who might as well have been his prince coach rather than guard, aided him in adjusting fast to royal life. 

Otabek wondered if Yuuri would see the disdain in such a life as Yuri had, but he came to understand Yuuri had been known as a rather clumsy, untoward fairy. Royalty might suit his soft and charming disposition.

Yuri chose to coast the edge of fae and human. Otabek was secretly (though Yuri probably knew) very happy Yuri wanted to keep one foot in the human world. It suited him best to live betwixt two worlds. Otabek just hoped beyond the freedom and thrill and magic, Yuri would be able to carve out a place he wanted to call home.

These thoughts and reflections left Otabek with a breathless sigh. He was pulled back to the earth, under the bruising sky and around the wisps of glowing light. Yuri smirked before him. “You caught me,” Otabek admitted, barely remembering what they'd been joking about. He shook his head. “I love you, and I'm a fool to try and mess with you.” He caught Yuri’s next protest against his lips, reclaiming his win. Through closed eyes, he could’ve sworn the blue fluttering around them grew brighter. 

“Okay then,” Yuri whispered against his mouth. He took a step down the hill toward the forest, gently tugging Otabek by the wrist. The breeze picked up and pushed with the flow of his next words: “Take me to the woods.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg! the end ;~;  
thanks again for reading!!!! please drop a comment / kudo so Marcella and i know you passed through <3 please remember to check out their art. they've done tons more for the yoi fandom since this fic first started getting published!
> 
> author: [Tumblr](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) | [Twitter](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon)  
artist: [Tumblr](https://marcarella-pizza.tumblr.com/) | [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/marcarella.pizza/?hl=en) | [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcarellaPizza/pseuds/MarcarellaPizza)


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